New York City Mayor Eric Adams says that half of the hotel rooms in the city are being used to house asylum seekers. And you wondered why rates were so high in the city for the rooms that are left?
NYC Mayor Eric Adams said 50% of city hotel rooms are currently filled by asylum seekers — and the city is having a hard time finding any other room at hotels for them.
“Almost 50% of those hotel rooms are being taken up by migrant asylum seekers, that we’re paying for,” Adams said. “So instead of money coming from people who are visiting us and spending and our tourism and our Broadway plays, instead of them using those hotels, we are using those hotels.”
He said the city has reached out to hotels and many say they don’t want to get into the shelter business.
“Many of them are going to price points that is just too high for tax payers to pay,” Adams said. “Many of them are not suitable for housing or migrants.”
He complains that instead of net revenue for the city from out-of-towners, this is a net cost to the city.
The math, though, is implausible since the city reports that there are fewer than 40,000 asylum seekers in the city, since that’s less than 30% of available hotel rooms, and they aren’t all being housed in hotels.
Still, between homeless and refugees an increasing number of low-end properties are being used to house people by the city – and even relatively better hotels are being converted for this purpose. The Hilton JFK will become an affordable housing complex. The 50% number may not be right, but the magnitude of the challenge – financial, and opportunity cost – is real.
Doubling the problem of course is that New York is making it increasingly costly to open new hotels. So while they’re taking hotel rooms out of inventory, it’s challenging to add more, and especially challenging to add more at lower price points where rooms are being removed. That prices out tourists and even some business travel.
New York City is going to be facing a series of challenges that are likely to get worse. New York City has maybe 90% of its office real estate financially under water. With return to office still limited, there’s a lot of companies that may need less space going forward. And fewer office workers mean fewer people supporting surrounding businesses during the day. People that have moved out of the city mean fewer taxpayers.
Overall they’re facing increasing demands for services against a reduced tax base. That will stain services and push people out even more. But it could make New York more affordable over time, even if a bit grittier. Maybe even a return to its creative peak 50 years ago – great for art and artists, but bad for those relying on city government. An and to the anesthetized culture that followed the rise of pure finance, maybe a shift to more of a Berlin in the early to mid-aughts if they play this right? That is the positive case, at least…
Fairly easy to solve: Just revert to Trump’s poloicy on the border. What you describe is a by-product of the Biden regime’s border policy.
Maybe convert all the unused office space–now more workers are remote–to hotel and residential property.
the comical thing is the american “left” thinks that a small town like el paso should be responsible for all these migrants but their mega blue cities with thousands of rooms can’t.
I suspect the good Mayor is using a bit of hyperbole there. Still, not a good situation.
Whats the matter? Don’t any of these lefties want all these future doctors, lawyers and engineers living around them?
Could not happen to a better city!!
Disgusting conversion of human habitat. Just passing in transit through JFK now, beautiful sunset view of Manhattan skyline from American Airlines terminal 8. NYC is as attractive as a dumpster fire to a middle class tourist.
The DemonRat logic is impeccable: let in tens of millions under “asylum” and they will, in 7 years, be citizens who vote. They are the future DemonRat voters. Let’s Go Brandon.
EdSparks58
Asylum is a human right. This is something decent human beings have recognized for centuries.
Asylum seekers are congregating in NYC because there are too few decent cities in America. Swaths of land, ripe for dense and affordable housing, are unavailable to asylum seekers because of the bigotry and inhumanity of Republicans clinging to the white supremacist idea that members of the same species, who happened to have been born on the other side of an artificially demarcated border, are undeserving of humane treatment.
UA GS @ SFO with the moon shot. There’s one in every crowd.
Lol is this comment section a MAGA reunion or what?
@UA GS @ SFO
are you a troll or are you really this retarded?
@Nico
No just rational people calling out democrat hypocrisy and getting a good laugh at it.
@ Gary , you being a known leftist liberal is surprised over this and the endless flow of open border lawless illegals immigration ? You should be cheering here . You need to call for no port of entry immigration check point and no land border snd airports.
Shocking only if your head has been buried in the sand for the past 3 years.
@chad
lol ok, what’s that have to do with airlines and travel hacking?
81,000,000 dimwits Yanks voted for this, allegedly. Suck it up America.
UA GS @ SFO
Trolling? It is a HUGE difference between Economy migrants and REAL Asylum seeker but you do not recognize that. I am for helping asylum seekers but not the economy driven ilegals.Use legal path!
UK has “Remain in Rwanda” we should do Remain in Haiti. Deport you there while waiting asylum
Why not send some “migrants” to Las Vegas? Plenty of cheap hotel rooms there.
UA GS @ SFO,
Is being a moron something new to you or have you always been that way? Swaths of land, ripe for dense and affordable housing, are unavailable to “economic” refugees because the current administration allows foreign nations like China, hostile to the US, to buy up said land and do their part along with Democrats to end personal ownership of land among other nefarious reasons.
NYC is getting what they wanted – to be a passionate, sanctuary city, an inclusive, diverse and magical place, a place with cheap painters, landscapers, Mexican restaurants, devoid of crime and providing endless wealth for all. Stop being racists and help get those busses flowing!
It’s pretty much comedy at this point watching these democrat-run cities fail.
This is what you wanted so what’s the problem?
I’ll elaborate on Gary’s “a bit grittier” take. What this REALLY means is: Flithy, crime-ridden sh*thole…..just like the 70s and 80s.
Anybody seen Bernhard Goetz lately?
I think New York should send “thank you”s” to brain dead Biden, Mayorkas and the DemocRatic Party. And to think that Mayorkas has repeatedly said that the southern border is “secure”. This is just one of the many results of brainwashed DemocRats voting for the traitor Biden.
who in the world ever decided that asylum seekers should be given hotel rooms deserves exactly what is happening in NYC.
Breathtaking crime in SFO.
Businesses leaving Portland OR in droves.
Historians that are even the slight bit objective will see that pursuit of the policies which are destroying America’s largest and most liberal cities is by far the worst in American history.
Meanwhile, cities in Florida, Tennessee and Georgia are booming.
The airlines make money hauling people in/out of NYC because of huge corporations that can’t pull the plug on their massive investments in the world’s financial center.
99% do not have a legitimate asylum cases, they are economic migrants. We should be handling the cases much more quickly.
Wow, what a big step back to the 80s – and not in the fun way. I’ve been to NYC hotels that used to be shelters, e.g. The Hudson near Columbus Circle and The Lucerne on the UWS (not entirely sure it was a shelter, but it’s been a hotel and a college dorm, so probably). Now we’re going backwards. Not saying NYC shouldn’t get it’s share of the illegal immigration problem…just sad to see all of the good done for taxpaying residents from 1996-2015 (roughly) erode so quickly.
Gary advocating for the return to the “creative peak” of NYC in the 1970s is the take of the century. How to better exemplify the total lack of understanding of the impact of crappy liberal attitudes I surely don’t know. (though I suspect Gary is yet another born-in fly over country liberal who simply has no clue what NYC was like in the 70s)
Yeah, the XXX shops around Times Square and the prostitutes and druggies up and down Ninth Avenue around the Port Authority; creative nirvana. How about the smell from all the piss from vagrants in the underground walkway from Penn Station to Herald Square, like heaven. Only to be replaced with the whitewashed, finance driven mallification of New York. The horror.
I’d think you might be ashamed of what you write sometimes, but that would be fooling only myself. Only know that the current wave of insane liberal policy will soon find an end because Gary only presents us with nonsense as the alternative and everyone sees it.
New York City becoming the next San Fransisco? Another failed city? Lets hope not…
New York is absorbing far more than its fair share of asylum seekers, who are dumped on them by the busloads by red states (just as red states also dump their homeless populations on Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles by the busload). I think the solution to this is to pick one southern city for all of us to dump on en masse. If it’s us doing it to red states, I’m guessing their right wing Supreme Court will suddenly find it necessary to outlaw this sort of behavior nationwide.
Pay landlords to use vacant office space for shelters. Win-Win.
And I believe real asylum seekers are supposed to request asylum in the first safe country they arrive? (not cross many borders to get to USA).
what’s happening over here
Well that explains why I can’t find a Hilton in Manhattan for under 90,000 pts or $300 next week.
@TProphet
Their “fair share” is all of them since it’s these blue lefty cities that allow these policies for people to claim sham “asylum” and enter the US.
The red states are just holding lefties accountable.
Saying you’re a sanctuary city sounds so enlightening until it happens. That’s the problem with these leftists. It’s a great idea as long as the burden falls on someone else.
This problem could be fixed in a day. This isn’t an accident. It’s not an uncontrollable problem. This is deliberate.
Don’t know why you insist on writing about NYC. It is clear you have no idea what you are talking about. Like seriously did you just refer to nyc in the mid 1970s as a creative peak? Wow just wow. Learn some history. Nyc wasn’t a bit grittier back then. It was a hell hole with rampant crime. Nyc today is nothing remotely close to that. We don’t need more frickin hotels either. Rent is incredibly high in nyc. By the way people post pandemic have been moving back into nyc. Only thing that you managed to get right is high vacancy rate for office space. People want to work from home so less need for large amount of physical office space. What nyc should do is redone a lot of those office areas and let them switch to residential to grow the residential aspects of the neighborhood. That will help surrounding businesses flourish. No point in waiting for office workers to return en masse. Nyc residential neighborhoods in most of Manhattan are currently thriving. In terms of the asylum seekers this is the result of an incompetent federal government. Both parties are responsible. Democrats are failing to secure the border and republicans are trying to overwhelm nyc to score cheap political points. Both parties are an absolute disgrace. Also the mayor of nyc is a clown. I wouldn’t put much stock in what he says. Still he is better than the moron we had before.
@chad umm you do know immigration and asylum policy comes from the federal government and not local government at the city level right?
@charlie office space cant just be turned into shelters overnight. It’s not up to residential codes. Also those landlords won’t want to do that. They don’t want to run shelters
Why don’t they send these migrants to the flyover states. You know communities where everybody has left. Why the hell would you send them to some of the most expensive to live parts of the country.
Blue states champion for “Asylum Seekers” as long as they stay in Red States
The “Asylum Seekers” sent to Martha’s Vineyard were given a hot meal and a one night stay before being shipped out. Liberal areas are all about open borders not in their area
It reminds me of the people that want more prisons and mental hospitals……just not near their house
He said the city has reached out to hotels and many say they don’t want to get into the shelter business.
“Many of them are going to price points that is just too high for tax payers to pay,” Adams said. “Many of them are not suitable for housing or migrants.”
Well duh…
96% of New Yorkers voted for this, so now they can deal with the consequences. Their guy set the table for this less than one hour after he was inaugurated. Obviously, flooding the country with non-vetted migrants is a top priority for Old Joe’s masters.
For that matter, send a couple hundred thousand to Martha’s Vineyard, so the aforementioned masters can get in on the enjoyment.
@Bill – “Don’t know why you insist on writing about NYC. It is clear you have no idea what you are talking about. Like seriously did you just refer to nyc in the mid 1970s as a creative peak? Wow just wow. Learn some history. ”
I literally lived there at the time. It was *both* a creative peak and a crime-ridden hellhole. I grew up very cautious of my surroundings because of it.
looks like Texas governor Greg Abbott fully succeeding at making his point
This is exactly as it should be. The New York City and New York State voter base supports open borders as evidenced by the people they elect, so everything is working out fine.
When the illegal alien problem was a border state problem, it wasn’t a problem for New Yorkers.
Now, not so much
Democrats are the party of illegal immigration and child mutilation. They are not only on the wrong side of every issue they are on the evil side.
Wonder if any of them earn nights toward elite status with chain hotels.
@Homer
If NYC powers are greedy, they keep points for yourselves. If they are stupid, they don’t care and would allow the tenant to attach their loyalty ID to reservation. The choice is tough one, but I bet on stupid.
*for themsleves*
Wait until they find out how hard it is to use their Marriott platinum breakfast benefit at these properties. I predict a lot of self-deporting
I smell another Biden money scam!!!! the “Holiday Inn NYC” is owned now by a Chinese LLC and is severely in debt. But hey, Biden is here to save the day for them and funnel almost $100,000 PER DAY to feed and house these “migrants” at that former hotel. We already know 200 of these “migrants” caught by border agents are on the terrorist watch list……how many of the “gotaways” are on that list to? And now we’re bussing them to NYC???? ya, send them to one of the most dense cities in the country…..along with their tuberculosis, Zeka, Polio, Measles, …………..