Creedmoor tent shelter opens to migrants
/
The 1,000 bed migrant shelter at Creedmoor in Queens officially opened on Tuesday, welcoming its first group of asylum seekers. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
By Ryan Schwach
The migrant tent shelter at Creedmoor opened its doors to migrants on Tuesday, one day ahead of schedule, welcoming in the first 100 or so asylum seekers amid local pushback on the facility.
The Creedmoor Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, which will house around 1,000 migrant single men, has been protested against by local civic leaders and challenged by local elected officials. As it opened to its first wave of migrants, city officials addressed the facilities services and procedures as New York continues to deal with a migrant crisis that is being compared to ones the U.S faced during World War II and the Vietnam War.
“We've been working incredibly hard to open this site so that we can care for the asylum seekers coming into our city,” said Dr. Ted Long, senior vice president at NYC Health + Hospitals, who are managing the site.
Long detailed the site’s aspects, which includes two tents, one with 850 cots, the other without 150. He says there will be a cafeteria, laundry services and a lockbox underneath the bed for belongings.
“Every single site that we look at is a three dimensional, four dimensional, five dimensional puzzle piece in terms of solving for transportation, land use neighborhoods, types of infrastructure,” added Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol. “There's also a lot of logistics that goes into running all these sites, including staff. So there's staff, there's operations, there's logistics and then there's the physical space.”
Long says that migrants have no curfew, can come and go as they please and will be given “as much food as [they] want,” after their long journey to obtain asylum.
“We have hours for food that are posted in the cafeteria in multiple languages,” he said. “So people know when they come for breakfast, they can get a sandwich for lunch if they're going out for the day, looking for work, things like that.”
Once a migrant arrives at Creedmoor, they will be checked in and given a QR code that allows them to scan in and out, they will be screened for communicable diseases and then can meet with staff who can help them discuss their goals and how the city can help them.
The Creedmoor HERRC’s opening coincides with the city hitting the 100,000 mark for asylum seekers that have entered the city during the crisis, with 60,000 still in the city's care.
City officials laid out the site details, which will have laundry, a cafeteria and 24/7 security. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
In recent week’s the city and the Adams’ Administration have said the crisis is beginning to cause a major strain on the city, and cannot be managed much longer without federal help.
“This is on par and on scale with any major forced migration crisis this country has faced going back to World War II,” said Iscol. “This is an immense operation that has fallen on the shoulders of the city.”
On Wednesday, Governor Kathy Hochul’s office issued a filing which criticized the city’s management of the crisis, saying they have not appropriately communicated with the state, sloppily handled funds and could do more to utilize shelter beds for migrants, the Daily News reported.
Newly appointed Deputy Mayor for Communications Fabien Levy said the estimated cost for the city will be about $4.7 billion this year.
“Every single day for the last few months we've continued to receive hundreds of people every single day,” he said. “We're trying to scrap by at this point…at a certain point, you hit the bottom of the barrel, that's where we are.”
Local electeds have spoken against the shelter, with worry Creedmoor is not the right place to house 1,000 men, due to its isolation from public transportation and other resources.
“This site is a disservice to both asylum seekers and locals, and it is frustrating that the local electeds’ and community leaders’ voices have not been heard as the construction of the tent structure continued,” said Councilmember Linda Lee in a statement. “The area in question is lacking in public transit, commerce, and infrastructure. The city would be effectively stranding asylum seekers with minimal options to support themselves.”
“Additionally, the local social service organizations on the Creedmoor campus – including an older adult center – could be adversely impacted by the presence of this large-scale facility,” she added.
Bob Friedrich, a local civic leader who has been one of the loudest voices challenging the shelter, calls it a “powder keg of instability.”
“This is a completely inappropriate location and quite frankly, it's inhumane to the migrants,” he told the Eagle. “The city that purports to care about them, is putting them in a transit desert with no shopping and nothing to do in rows and rows of cots.”
He also says while outside the shelter today, a migrant came out of the tents and asked him where a train station was using a translation app on his phone.
Recent protests have been held against the proposed shelter. Eagle photo by ryan schwach
“There isn’t a train for miles and miles away,” said Friedrich.
One of Friedrich’s main worries is security, and migrants wandering into parts of the nearby residential community, which he says already deals with safety issues.
“We have people with substance abuse problems roaming the area that already takes up 25 percent of the NYPD 105th Precinct’s resources,” he said.
City officials say there will be 24/7 unarmed security guards at the facility, and maintain that they will be in close contact with the NYPD.
Long also said that there have been a very small amount of security related incidents at any of the city’s shelter sites so far.
“These are people who come into our country who want to work,” he said.
Locals have scheduled several protests outside the shelter site, including one Wednesday night, but amid the local pushback, city officials say they are out of options.
“We're out of good options, we're out of even okay options,” said Levy. “These are the only options left, and it's a question of do you want people sleeping on the street, or do you want people sleeping in a cot?”
“If people want to protest, that's obviously their right…We're not going to stop them from doing that, but like we said, we're out of good options,” he added.
