Some of New York City’s homeless immigrants should be sheltered on Long Island at an Air National Guard base and the shuttered grounds of state-owned mental hospitals, according to a letter to the state filed this week by the Adams administration.
The proposed sites on Long Island, according to a copy of the request obtained by Newsday, are the Francis S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base on Moen Street in Westhampton Beach; Pilgrim Psychiatric Center on Crooked Hill Road in Brentwood; and Kings Park Psychiatric Center in Nissequogue River State Park.
The city also requested nearly two dozen other state-owned sites — from the East End of Long Island to Flushing to Buffalo — where the city hopes to place migrants. The sites include the Javits Center in Manhattan, Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, State University of New York dorms and vacant prisons upstate.
The request is made in an appendix in a letter, dated Aug. 22, that has not been made public. It was filed in a Manhattan state court by the city, which is scrambling to find room to shelter, feed and otherwise care for tens of thousands of immigrants who have arrived from abroad, mostly from Latin America and West Africa, and need a place to stay.
So far, about 60% of the 104,400 immigrants from the surge, which started last spring, are being sheltered, fed and otherwise cared for by the city, according to figures released Wednesday by the Adams administration. This means that 59,300 are living in city shelters, hotels and other accommodations. In the latest week, 3,100 more migrants came to the city.
It’s unclear whether the state would grant the city access to the requested sites. On Monday, in an interview with NY1, Gov. Kathy Hochul was asked about relocating migrants outside the city. She said the city has more opportunities than elsewhere for work, language and transit.
“We are focused on helping find as many sites at considerable state expense in the city, and we believe there’s still more capacity,” she said.
The city’s letter also requests that the state block relocation bans enacted by over 30 jurisdictions around the state — such as Suffolk and Riverhead.
“The City also wishes to reiterate the importance of issuing a State Executive Order to preempt attempts by certain localities to stymie the City’s efforts to place New Arrivals in accommodations outside the City through local executive orders or litigation,” the letter said.
An executive order signed May 26 by Suffolk Executive Steve Bellone that forbids county hotels, motels and shelters from contracting with the city to accept relocated migrants, absent county approval, does not appear to apply to actions by the state on state land.
Indeed, in signing the order, Bellone’s office said that the state should be the government entity, not the city, to coordinate migrant relocations.
Bellone’s office did not return a message seeking comment early Thursday morning.
Earlier this month, tent dorms opened near the Queens-Nassau border in a parking lot at the state-owned Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens Village. There is capacity for about 1,000, and as of Wednesday, about 800 adults were living there, according to Dr. Ted Long, a city official helping oversee the crisis response.
Some Long Island politicians have vehemently opposed any relocations.
The city’s letter was in response to one filed a week ago in which a lawyer for Hochul chastised New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ administration for its handling of the migrant influx, saying that the city has failed to properly respond to the crisis and coordinate care for the immigrants. In turn, the letter filed Aug. 22 by the city criticizes the state for not giving enough cash, resources and coordination to help the city to handle the crisis
The back-and-forth letters are being filed because the city is in court requesting to partially suspend its decades-old, unique-in-the-nation “right to shelter,” which is buckling under pressure from the immigrant influx. So far, the city has opened over 200 locations to shelter migrants. The state, which under the mandate is required to split certain costs with the city for homeless shelters, is also a party to the litigation.
