United States | Asylum-seekers

New York’s shelter system is being overwhelmed by migrants

There are better ways to manage the influx

Migrants sleep outside the Roosevelt Hotel
Let them workImage: Getty Images
|NEW YORK

The tent city in the parking lot of Creedmoor Psychiatric Centre in Queens is far from ideal. The neighbourhood, 15 miles (24km) outside Manhattan, is mostly residential and is served by a solitary bus line. But because of the influx of migrants the tents are badly needed. It opened on August 15th and within a week the 1,000-bed facility was nearly full. Another shelter site, on Randall’s Island, between Manhattan and Queens, along with one soon to open at Floyd Bennett Field, a helicopter base in Brooklyn, will add 5,500 beds for migrants.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Breaking point”

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