Deputy Mayor For Health And Human Services Williams-Isom Holds Briefing On Asylum Seeker Crisis

May 31, 2023

Video available at: https://youtu.be/gAwSJIAzdfs

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, Health and Human Services: Hi, good afternoon. I feel like the teacher, good afternoon everyone. I'm Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom and I'm the deputy mayor of Health and Human Services, and I'm very happy to be here again to do our weekly briefing on asylum seekers. This week we are actually going to focus on the process of emergency sheltering. There's many different parts of this crisis, there's the front door and the emergency sheltering, making sure that no one sleeps on the street. There's what's happens with people when they're there, our legal strategies, how we're connecting people to services and benefits, and then there's the exit strategy about how do we make sure that people get what they came here for, connected to work, connected to a place for them and their family to settle. I'm joined today by Commissioner Iscol from the Emergency Management Department and our newest commissioner,  Commissioner Molly Park from our Department of Social Services.

I want to acknowledge the incredible work that these two as they represent in all of the organizations people have talked about. It seems like it's chaotic. It seems like there's no plan. It has been an emergency, and the city has really stepped up in a collaborative way and a caring way with compassion to make sure that they're working together to do what needs to get done. So I want to thank Molly and Zach and their teams for the work that they have done. To me, it is the best of government, it is a whole of government and approach, and it really shows what we can do when we put our mind to it.

From the first time last year when asylum seekers came to New York City, we did everything that we could to support children and families and individuals and to help them find shelter. And as this crisis has continued, in the absence of support from other people, we have just done everything that we can do to open up over 155 emergency sites in over a year, and just a staggering number as we keep on talking about that, and to continue to do the things that we need to do to make sure that no one is sleeping on the streets and that we have what we need.

Before I turn it over to Commissioner Park and Iscol, I'd like to just go over the numbers for this week. We currently have more than 45,800 people in our care, over 72,000 people have come into our intake centers since the beginning of this crisis last spring. Just this past week alone, we've had 2,200 additional new asylum seekers come through our system. We've opened 157, that's the total, emergency sites, including nine humanitarian relief centers, which means that currently we have over 95,000 people in the city's care.
Let me say that again — and I don't want Commissioner Park to fall off the chair — but when we came into this administration, I think we were a little over 45,000 people who were in our care, right now we are at 95,000 people in our care. This city continues to do whatever we need to do to support the asylum seekers, but we have reached a point where the system is buckling, and so we want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to make sure that we are able to provide the quality of care that we want to for our newly arriving New Yorkers and the New Yorkers that are here. So with that, I will turn it over to Commissioner Park to say a few words.

Commissioner Molly Wasow Park, Department of Social Services: Thank you, deputy mayor. I'm Molly Wasow Park. I'm the commissioner of the Department of Social Services, which is comprised of the Department of Homeless Services and the Human Resources Administration. First and foremost, I want to take a moment to thank the thousands of city workers and incredible frontline staff at the Department of Homeless Services for the work they've been doing day in and day out. In all of this, we often forget, or at best take for granted, the unparalleled dedication of our frontline staffers who've been showing up every day as the number of people in DHS's care has almost doubled in a year. DHS operates the majority of the city's more than 150 emergency sites, and since this crisis began last spring, DHS has worked to bring sites online at a breakneck speed, literally bringing sites online overnight in some cases to meet the enormous need that we have seen. Just by way of contrast, during Covid, we opened 87 emergency sites primarily in hotels. By last spring, we had been able to wind all of those down ensuring that clients were back in their regular shelters.

People often think that opening a shelter is like flipping on a light switch, but it really is not. Everything from furniture to staffing, food delivery, and services need to be organized, coordinated, and brought online often on short notice if we receive more asylum seekers in a given day than we expected. And our frontline staff already had demanding jobs before this crisis and they've been working around the clock at our emergency sites, at intake centers to make sure that we can get people what we need. We sometimes talk about city staff working tirelessly, but actually I really know that our team is tired. The last year has pushed the agency and its staff in unprecedented ways.

I want to reiterate how important it is to fully appreciate the scale and scope of the response the New York City government has delivered and continues to deliver, despite the ongoing challenges and the dire resource constraints we are facing, a response unlike any other in the country. The DHS census alone is at more than 81,000 today. As of the start of this administration, as the Deputy Mayor mentioned, the census was around 45,000. DHS's shelter census has nearly doubled over the short span of a year. But remember that the numerous agencies now have a role in providing shelter to asylum seekers so the total census across all city agencies is now more than 95,000, so it actually is more than double what it was a year ago.
Our agency has effectively been responding to a humanitarian crisis while also ensuring that New Yorkers experiencing homelessness continue to receive the supports that they need as we work to help them achieve long-term housing stability. I've worked in city government a long time and I've never seen such an extraordinary effort of this nature and scale. And while we have stepped up, I want to be very clear, as the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor have said, we've reached our limit of new spaces to open. The city needs additional financial and operational resources so that we can provide people with the dignity and compassion that they deserve.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Park. Commissioner Iscol?

Commissioner Zach Iscol, New York City Emergency Management: Yep, thank you, deputy mayor. So first off, I just want to echo the deputy mayor's comments and Commissioner Park's about the remarkable effort that's taking place and the public servants that are doing incredible work behind the scenes. This has been a 24/7 operation, the work that they are doing is remarkable and I couldn't be prouder to serve alongside them. And I will also say, deputy mayor, that leadership starts at the top. I have worked alongside and worked for some amazing battlefield commanders in combat, I would put Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom right at the top of that list.

Seeing the work she does behind the scenes, I still remember the first meeting when you really pulled us all together when the first buses were arriving last August, you set a clear moral compass for us, that we were going to be responsible for people's health and safety and that we were going to meet this need. And so thank you for your leadership during this time.

Emergency management 101 is that when the local municipality has sort of maxed out its resources, we really turned to the state and then the federal government for help. And we've largely been alone in this effort. We've turned around to hand off the football looking for help, and it has not really been there. This means that that has required a lot of improvisation and adaptation on the part of the city, that has been happening both through the work being done by our colleagues at Department of Social Services, at Health + Hospitals, and also within our own agency, City Hall, and other partners.

One of the things that we have had to do is, earlier this month, as we really ran out of space at some of our sites, we took the model that we use at New York City Emergency Management to open up coastal storm shelters and adapted that to provide a temporary place for us to shelter asylum seekers as they are waiting for placement in other facilities. I want to be very clear that these locations are not permanent places. They're not long-term or even mid-term solutions. They are waiting rooms. They're temporary placement while we wait for other spaces to open up for us to move people to. So we adapted our coastal storm shelter model to meet the needs of that population, to provide them a safe place for a very, very short period of time. The team has also been working to help identify sites. We currently have close to 750 prospects under review or in the process of being reviewed as we look for other places to put people.

And finally, I just want to emphasize what I said at the beginning, we really do need help. The federal government has shown before, whether it was Vietnamese refugees, whether it was after the 2010 earthquake, the recent Afghan crisis, after Hurricane Katrina, that it has the capacity to help, to move large numbers of people, resettle them around the country. It has been done before and it could be done here and should not just be on the shoulders of New York City as the mayor has said. So thank you, and back over to you, deputy mayor.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Thank you Commissioner Iscol. You were reminding us, as when we started this, and I think it was so important for us to set our moral compass. So thank you for saying that. I don't know about a battlefield commander, but I know that I lead with love.

This is personal to many of us. My family came here from the Caribbean. I know what it was like for my mom to come as a victim of domestic violence to this country and what she needed for her small children. And so when we made these decisions and everyone says, "It seems chaotic, it seems like you're not doing the right thing." We're doing it because we want to make sure that there's no one sleeping on the street, that people get what they need. We've been primarily doing it by ourselves. We think that that's unfair. We think that others need to step up and help us to do this.

We want to keep the quality of our care as we would want for any of our family members of any folks that come here, we're not going to be perfect. We want insights. We need sites, we need other places to go, but no one can say that we're not doing this with the best interest of people in mind, and I think that is proven by the fact that we don't have anyone sleeping on the streets. We need a national decompression strategy. We need more sites outside of the city and we need more coordination assistance and financial support from the federal government. With that, I'll take questions now.

Question: Deputy Mayor, earlier today, the budget director was speaking at a breakfast and he was asked about reimbursement from the federal government and he said, "City officials had heard from FEMA that in the upcoming tranche of cash that's expected later this year, no single municipality will receive more than 10 percent of the funds." So initially the city, and he continued to say, "Initially the city was under the impression that New York would be getting a large share of the $800 million." So I'm wondering if you can provide a little more detail on when the messaging from FEMA changed? And 10 percent works out to a little more than $30 million again, is that enough?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: So I'm not going to be able to give more details. I'll have to check with the Director Jiha about what he was talking about. But I think everyone can see that New York City is really taking a disproportionate amount of the folks that are coming here, and so $30 million is really a drop in the bucket. It is not sufficient for something that we think is going to be, I think the number is now $4.3 billion of expenses to New York City. I think anyone can understand that just that math does not work out. So I think we need more support, financial support, we need a decompression strategy. And yeah, I'll get the information about when we think that change from FEMA.

Question: We did a story over the weekend, I'm not sure if it ran, Sunday or Monday, if memory serves, but it was about this call some elected officials are making that they feel like the mayor should be doing more to enlist landlords with vacant apartments to help house the migrants. And I talked to some folks after the story, landlords, folks that represent them who kind of painted this picture of them having a lot more leverage than the city would have in terms of negotiating terms for that. So I'm trying to get a sense of where that is, what the city thinks is fair, what kind of feedback you guys are getting from landlords as far as what they think is feasible, fair to them, if they're going to, whether it's short or midterm, get their places set up to house migrants.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I'm going to get to you in a minute, but what I'm going to say is that I think… I don't think, everything is on the table right now, and so any suggestions that we're getting from people, we are exploring. Some of that is in the public eye, some of it is not. But this idea of what buildings are available, how do we get buildings up and ready is a very complicated process. And so Commissioner Park, do you want to add to that?

Commissioner Park: Yes, thank you. So helping households relocate from the shelter system to permanent housing is top of mind for the Department of Social Services every day. It's something we are incredibly focused on, using an array of different tools and we're working with landlords in a lot of different creative ways to try and make sure that there are permanent housing options for New Yorkers leaving the shelter system and asylum seekers when they qualify for housing subsidies as well. I think it's really important that while we are looking at all of the options for housing our asylum seekers that we're also not taking housing, and particularly not affordable housing, out of the stock, particularly when we're in an incredibly tight housing market to use as shelter. We want to make sure that we are focused on the goals, both of meeting people's emergency needs, but also the long-term housing needs of anybody experiencing homelessness.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: So balancing, you have to balance that.

Question: Deputy Mayor, so you said that 2,200 people have arrived within the last week. Do we know where those people are coming from? And what's going on with Texas? My colleague in El Paso said that the mayor there says that he has a great relationship with Mayor Adams. Are they still working together to coordinate buses coming in? And if so, how many buses are coming from Texas?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: So thank you for asking that question. And so you know that we've tried not to necessarily just talk about buses, because over these past couple of months, we're seeing people come from a variety of different places. So it's not just directly from the border and not just directly on buses, but there's folks coming in from the airport and other ports of entry. We've also seen, as I've said before, people coming in from other cities in the United States. And so I think it's a combination of all of those things, whether it's Denver or Chicago or Houston, that people are coming in from other states as states are finding that they're full and sending them to New York City in addition to people coming here from the border. From what I've heard from El Paso, things look like they're a little calm now and we've been in contact with them, but we don't necessarily get information about every time a bus comes and when a bus might be coming.

Question: So they're not giving you a heads-up?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: We are getting information about it, it may not necessarily be coming from the Texas government per se.

Question: Hi, everybody. For anybody at the podium, at what point would the city consider rebuilding that HERRC facility that was at Randalls Island? Where would that stand at this point? Is it a possibility? If so…

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I'm going to give it to you, commissioner, but I'm also going to say how many sites did you say that we've looked at?

Commissioner Iscol: I think it's well over 700, about close to 750 sites. So everything is on the table. You've heard us say that before. It really is, everything's on the table. I think when we look at sites, there's a number of factors that we need to look at. Some of it's cost, some of it's location, the amount of infrastructure that needs to be put in place, seasonal use of different places. So Brooklyn Cruise Terminal wasn't available earlier last fall, became available when the cruise ship season ended, and then we had to shut it down once the cruise ship season started again. You look at a place like Randalls Island, again, there's a lot of seasonal use out there and so that just factors into a lot of the decisions around different sites. But yes, everything still remains on the table.

Question: I have a very specific data question. This number in our care, does that include people that were sent to hotels in other cities since the city is paying for that or is that a separate number? And if so, how many people?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I don't think that's included in the data number, but we could… We'll get back to you on that.

Question: Can I ask an actual question? We've seen you open up respite centers, which are mostly for adults. I wonder if you can give us an update on how Roosevelt Hotel is looking? Is there enough space for families with children, and what will the city do if that is full?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: So, should I hand it over to you even though it's H + H?

Commissioner Park: I'm looking for Dr. Long.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I know we're looking for Dr. Long. I think H + H is… Actually, we're very excited to have Roosevelt open as a arrival center where we're able to process people, make sure that we get the data that we need, able to give them a survey so that we can figure out where they came from, what their paperwork looks like, getting people connected so we can make sure that they're getting connected to legal services.

The building is not completely full. I think that we still have some room there. I think every day I'm worried about capacity. There's not a day that I go to bed where I'm not like, "Ooh, do we have enough for tonight?" And I think for families with children in particular, I'm a little worried every night about whether or not we have enough room. I speak to Commissioner Park every morning and sometimes there's a little relief for the DHS system if folks are able to go to the Roosevelt, which I think we've been seeing over these past two weeks, which is a blessing. But yeah, I don't know if I answered your question, but we're always worried about capacity and there is still some room there.

Question: Deputy Mayor, I have two questions. Out of the 72,000 who have arrived since the spring, how many of them have actually filed for asylum? And then second, how much progress have you made with neighboring counties in asking them or persuading them to take some of the load from the city?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: So from the data that I have and I shouldn't, I'm looking at them because they're going to get mad at me, it looks like very few people have applied for asylum. So we need to make sure that, again, we're getting people the information that they need. So we're going to be working on that and we're doing some door knocking and working with our legal providers on that.

Question: Why have they not filed for asylum?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Probably a lot of different reasons. Probably people have come here, they've been nervous, they probably didn't know where to get connected to services, didn't know who to give their paperwork to. Molly, do you have other ideas?

Commissioner Park: Yeah. It's a fairly complex legal form with some fairly serious consequences if you fill it out wrong, so I think there is a lot of anxiety and concern there. And I think about how challenging it can be for me to fill out government paperwork with a career in government and as a native speaker of English, and I can certainly imagine that it would be very daunting if those are not true for you.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: And the second question is we're going to continue to work with our out of city partners to see how many people we can place there working with the state on a decompression strategy for families with children that we're hoping that's going to happen over the summer. So we're hopeful that we can still partner with folks in order to really make sure that the asylum seekers get to be settled in the way that that really shows them the care and dignity that they deserve.

Question: It doesn't sound like there's been much progress?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I think that we are still making progress. I think it's difficult. I think people are anxious about this and I think we want to show people that these are wonderful people who have came here to work and who want to be settled. And I think that we will continue to make progress as people understand that more.

Question: Earlier this month, the city stopped providing a breakdown of the migrants in the HERRCs and also in the DHS shelter system. My question is why did it stop providing that breakdown, especially as you're making the argument that the numbers have become unsustainable, that you need the federal funding, that we need to suspend right to shelter? Why not provide more data rather than less in this moment?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: So it was my understanding that we continue to provide numbers twice a week and that we never stopped doing that. And I think it's probably confusing to some people sometimes what's in the DHS system, which everybody can see and people know that number, what's in the HERRC systems. When we opened the emergency sites, we know that we were counting those, but people were moving out of those pretty quickly so we want to just make sure that we're being very accurate with our numbers. And I don't think that there was a stopping of reporting of data, but we're doing the best that we can to make sure that the data is accurate and that we are making sure that we're being transparent with the public.

Question: When do you expect to resume the reporting of that data? The precise number in HERRCs? The precise number.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: So it's been my understanding that we've always been reporting that data twice a week, so we will continue to do that.

Question: We're over a year into this crisis, has Governor Kathy Hochul provided any locations in terms of housing migrants that you guys are using currently at this point? And is there some frustration from your team when you hear, for example, the Albany County executive over the weekend talking about this micro crisis of calling it a New York City problem rather than a New York state problem?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Want to start?

Commissioner Iscol: Sure. So we are hopefully opening up a state facility imminently. I'm hoping that occurs in the next day or two. In terms of frustrations with upstate executives or politicians, I'd defer back to the deputy ,ayor.

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Well, I was going to say I think that we are victims of our own success. Where people think this is a New York City problem, it's not a New York City problem, it's a national problem and we just want to be clear that it's a national problem and we think it deserves a national solution.

Question: Is it a New York State problem?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I think it's a national problem and I think that we all should be rolling up our sleeves, the city, state, and the federal government, in order to deal with it.

Question: Deputy Mayor, kind of following up on the same theme, it just seems like some other counties in the state continue to complain about a lack of coordination with the city and Albany County in particular. So how do you account for the disconnect?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Well, I can imagine that people are probably used to having months and months in order to plan for something like this. We don't have months and months to plan for it. As we just hear, we get people coming, we get a bus and things have to turn over very quickly. But we've been in contact with everyone. Everyone knows that we're talking about thousands of people. The people that we're asking them to take is less than one quarter of 1 percent of the people that are here in New York City. I know it's a big deal to them, but I think that I would stand by that we are giving people a heads-up, we are coordinating, we are communicating, but I know how people must feel because that's how we felt a year ago when we just saw people coming here and felt like we weren't prepared for it.

Question: Are you currently sending any to other counties in the state that you can tell us?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: I think we're going to continue our program as we're doing because we think it's the right thing to do, especially as we run out of sites here in New York City.

Question: Commissioner Iscol the state facility, is that the Lincoln, the one up in Harlem?

Commissioner Iscol: It is.

Question: And how many respite centers do you have right now?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: It fluctuates depending on how many people are in and how many people we are able to move out.

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