Homeless New Yorkers — and now migrants — trying to skip city are getting a free ticket-to-ride out of the Huge Apple.
The town Division of Homeless Companies has inked a brand new $250,000 contract with reserving agent Alpha Worldwide Journey Corp., to relocate a few of the practically 100,000 homeless shelter residents throughout the US. Migrants trying to go away New York Metropolis will even be accommodated, as a part of a revamp of DHS’ Journey Help program.
“This program will even now assist with the relocation of latest arrivals,” a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams stated. “Streamlining these operations will permit us to proceed closing extra emergency shelters and assist migrants go away our system to take the following step on their journey.”
The brand new ticket-to-ride contract is illustrative of simply how a lot Metropolis Corridor continues to grapple with a persistent homelessness drawback, regardless of the migrant disaster subsiding.
A staggering 97,100 individuals stay within the shelter system as of final week, together with 40,800 migrants.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has already transported 61,000 asylum seekers elsewhere — via a separate migrant reconnection program — since 2022. Over that interval, greater than 234,200 migrants have come via the town’s consumption system.
Which means greater than 193,000 migrants have moved on from the town’s care since 2022, in accordance with metropolis officers.
“Because of our nation-leading administration of this disaster — together with our profitable reticketing program — we’ve seen over 9 straight months of the migrant inhabitants decline in our shelter system, 62 migrant shelters might be closed by June, and we’ve saved metropolis taxpayers $5 billion,” a Metropolis Corridor spokesperson stated.
Metropolis officers emphasised they’re not haphazardly transferring migrants into different cities like Texas did with none prior planning.
This system was first began for homeless shelter residents in 2007, beneath Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
It’s thought of a worthwhile funding, costing the town lots of of {dollars} per ticket as a substitute of tens of hundreds to maintain somebody within the shelter system.
DHS paid for 1,881 one-way tickets to maneuver homeless shelter residents exterior of Gotham in 2024.
“New York Metropolis’s reconnection applications present the considerate relocation of migrants and conventional shelter purchasers to be nearer to family and friends or different alternatives or neighborhood ties in a measured and coordinated method with the expressed curiosity of the purchasers we serve — to not use these individuals as a political stunt,” a metropolis official stated.
Conventional homeless people and households or migrants will need to have housing choices or a viable place to stay, a robust household or different connection to the vacation spot or a job, to be eligible.
The town additionally continues to function a reticketing program for migrants exterior of the shelter system.
And hundreds of migrants stay housed in metropolis motels, exterior the standard system.
Supply hyperlink
