7 On Your Side Investigates: How taxpayer money is being spent at hotels for asylum seekers
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Eyewitness News 7 On Your Side Investigates is taking a closer look at how New York City is spending taxpayer money at emergency shelters for asylum seekers.
We submitted Freedom of Information requests with New York City and obtained nine contracts the city has with various service agencies. The city has approximately 90 emergency shelters for migrants, according to city officials.
The contracts Eyewitness News obtained range from $6 million to $23 million to $237 million and include line items for personnel and supplies.
Supplies at the shelters ranged from walkie-talkies to flashlights and bullhorns. Money was also allocated for CPR and active shooter training. Eyewitness News found the highest costs - except for food - were for computers, cell phones, servers, and computer licensing programs.
The contracts stipulate personnel at the shelters must help residents budget their income and help them save money to pay for permanent housing.
At one of the shelters, the staff is required to meet with residents every two weeks to work on residents' ILP or Independent Living Plan.
Eyewitness News found in one shelter, the staff is utilizing a token-based reward system to encourage good behavior among the migrants.
The contract reads, "The token economy awards points to Residents for designated tasks, accomplishments or behaviors and deducts points for behaviors contrary to the Shelter rules. When residents have accumulated enough points, they may trade them in for items from the token economy store."
The city said as of April 19, 34,800 asylum seekers are currently in the care of the city. The city estimates it costs $380 per day to house and feed one migrant family.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander recently testified to the New York City Council on Immigration that the city is slated to spend $2 billion this year on migrants and 99 percent of the money will be spent on shelter and food.
"We urgently need to turn our focus on helping people get out of shelter," he said.
Lander advised the committee that the city should funnel an additional $50 to $100 million into helping migrants get out of the shelters, including assisting them in filing their asylum seeker applications and filing for work authorization.
"Every family that we can help get out of shelter, we are saving money in the long term," he said.
New York City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Maspeth) said the city has to come up with immediate solutions or New York City taxpayers - he said specifically middle-class taxpayers - are going to bear the brunt of the costs.
"We know that our taxes are going to go up to pay for this," he said.
Holden would like to see the city institute a program similar to the Works Progress Administration created after the Great Depression, in which the government paid the unemployed to work. However, Holden acknowledged federal laws would have to change to allow migrants to obtain their work authorizations faster than they are right now.
Mayor Eric Adams was in Washington, DC Friday asking the federal government - yet again - for financial assistance.
Earlier in the day, he spoke at the African American Mayors Association conference in DC where he said the migrant crisis is "destroying" the city.
Mural Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, responded to Adams' comment saying, "It is long past time that Mayor Adams stopped treating people seeking safety as a crisis, and started investing in an infrastructure of permanent housing, legal representation, and social service supports that will asylum seekers, and all New Yorkers, to build their lives here."
----------
DO YOU NEED A STORY INVESTIGATED? Dan Krauth, Kristin Thorne, and the 7 On Your Side Investigates team at Eyewitness News want to hear from you! Call our confidential tip line 1-877-TIP-NEWS (847-6397) or fill out the form BELOW.
----------
* Get Eyewitness News Delivered
* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts
Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News
Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.
