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by ziftface 951 days ago
In what way has a migrant surge affected the budget?
4 comments

NYC has a "right to housing" law that requires the government to provide a roof for anyone who needs it, including migrants. With the recent influx of migrants this is causing unforeseen spending that will total $5bn in 2023.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/nyregion/adams-nyc-migran...

> NYC has a "right to housing" law

Not a law, a consent decree, and Adams just suspended it.

NYC is housing migrants in hotel rooms that it pays for.

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20230926176/hou...

Some hotels are charging the city $300 a night.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-09/nyc-migra...

A billion here, a billion there... pretty soon you're talking real money.

Why does it cost so much? Seems strange that the city is unable to negotiate better rates if these hotels are struggling
Wonder why they don't include AirBnB in that? Oh, yeah, I forgot, they're totally not a hotel, right?
AirBNB is all but banned in NYC.

So the hotels are full of migrants, not tourists, and there are few other options, which further hurts the local economy.

Tourism numbers are rapidly approaching pre-pandemic highs[1], with the main inertia being Asian tourism, not a lack of hotel availability.

The city really shouldn't be attempting to house migrants in midtown Manhattan, but doing so isn't actually appearing to hurt tourism numbers.

[1]: https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/09/05/tourists-china-hotel-rate...

Any quick googling will return numerous stories about this. Here is one that estimates it at $5,000,000 a day that NYC is spending.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/03/bidens-migrant-mess-costing-ne...

Spitballing, but I think they provided shelter for a lot of them. No idea if that would significantly impact NYC's budget