Maria Quero and her husband, David Dominguez, undertook a dangerous journey from Venezuela to get to New York. But in many ways, Tuesday felt like the most daunting leg of the trip yet.
As around 40 families were given the boot from The Row hotel Tuesday, marking the first wave of migrant families facing eviction from their city shelters, Quero and others faced a frightening unknown. They left their rooms at the emergency shelter with little communication about the 60-day shelter stay policy, where they’ll land next or even where they’d sleep Tuesday night.
The 26-year-old Quero, who is 36 weeks pregnant, clutched her belly as she walked through Midtown with her husband, Dominguez, 39, to get to the Roosevelt Hotel from The Row, around a 15-minute walk.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” Quero said. “… I could give birth tomorrow,” she said. “I mean, you never know. It’s my first pregnancy, and a baby can come early or be late.”
Her husband has tried to find work, but it’s difficult to find anything stable. She’s not sure when they’ll be able to get a new shelter bed or where they will land. Many single migrants who faced similar time-limited evictions were forced to sleep in the street or on the subway.
“That’s the most overwhelming thing, because we don’t know what’s going to happen or how long it’ll take for us to be relocated,” Quero said. “We know we have to wait because we aren’t the only ones leaving today, but it’s overwhelming. We don’t know how long we’ll have to wait [to get shelter].”
In total, 4,800 families have received notices telling them they must vacate their shelters. That number is expected to grow as the Adams administration rolls out the policy further, with estimates as high as 100 families pushed out of their shelters each day over the next few weeks. Around 67,000 migrants total reside in the local shelter system, with more arriving every day.
Rain started to pelt down on Tuesday, further complicating the relocation process both for migrants trudging through puddles and for the city as they evacuated around 2,000 migrants from a family tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field to a Brooklyn high school.
Adams’ 60-day policy rules that migrant families may only stay in place for 60 days at a time, before they’re forced to either move on or reapply for shelter. They’re directed to go to the Roosevelt, where migrants receive wristbands and are told to wait.
The line reserved for returning families with kids will be prioritized, and city officials said that Department of Education officials onsite would help ease the transition, working to secure busing or MetroCards so that students can stay in school.
“Our highest priority is making sure kids, especially in elementary school, can stay in stay in school there,” Dr. Ted Long, a top official at NYC Health + Hospitals, said Tuesday.
The policy has been extremely controversial. Advocates and other elected officials, who rallied Monday called for Adams to reverse course.
Outside The Row on Tuesday morning, Comptroller Brad Lander announced his office will be launching an investigation of the 60-day policy.
“We may not be able to prevent the cruelty of evicting pregnant women and families in the middle of winter time,” Lander said, referring to Quero. “But we can at least demand the information for how the implementation of that policy is taking place.”
In a letter to Adams informing him of the investigation, Lander slammed the “poorly communicated” rule and raised a range of questions about the implementation of the policy, case management for migrants and school disruption for migrant students.
“We have concerns about the fiscal implications of the stated policy that the administration is executing, among them, how case management resources are being distributed, whether evictions or shelter relocations will impact migrants’ ability to obtain work authorization and appropriate immigration status, and the costs of uprooting and moving families from their existing rooms and school communities,” the letter, sent Monday, read.
Adams has made assurances that no families will be forced to sleep outside despite the shelter change.
“This is not going to be a city where we’re going to place children and families on the street and have them sleep on the street — that’s not going to happen,” Adams said Monday.
Also on Tuesday, nearly 2,000 migrants at far-flung Floyd Bennett Field were evacuated due to storm conditions.
Heavy rains and winds as high as 70 mph are expected in the area Tuesday night. The site has repeatedly come under fire for its location and risks of extreme weather on the former airfield.
As of 4 p.m. at the Roosevelt, migrants who had entered seeking shelter after losing their spots at The Row were still waiting for new placements.
