Mayor Adams is moving migrants out of NYC shelters, but where are they landing?

City Hall says Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to clear space for new migrants in local shelters is working, but there’s a big gap in the available data.

Under 20% of migrants who have received 30- and 60-day notices to leave city shelters remain in the beleaguered shelter system, City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak said. That equates to about 1,700 of the 8,480 migrants the city says have reached the limit on their stays.

But it's unclear where the remaining 80% who are out of time have gone. Mamelak said the city didn’t track where those migrants — about 6,800 people, based on the city's data — ended up.

More than 120,000 migrants, who are mostly asylum-seekers, have come to New York since spring 2022. More than 60,000 live in city-provided shelters, which range from hotels to congregate settings, and the Adams administration has said for months that the city is out of space.

Immigrant advocates and some migrants say those kicked out of city shelters are facing a new level of chaos and confusion.

Late last month, the administration quietly opened two new sites to help process the growing number of migrants who have reached their stay limits. One of the sites is a “reticketing center” in an old Catholic school in the East Village, where migrants who have received vacate notices can get a free bus or plane ticket to another city.

The other site is a "waiting room" where migrants have been directed to stay while awaiting a bed in a city shelter, Mamelak said.

Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney at the nonprofit Legal Aid Society, said the location of the "waiting room" has changed multiple times, and that in recent weeks, migrants had stayed overnight for "several days" in the makeshift facilities.

Some migrants who were kicked out of city shelters are confused about where they should go, said Goldfein and Ariadna Phillips, an organizer with the South Bronx Mutual Aid group. Some hoping to reapply for shelter ended up at the "reticketing" center, while others landed at the Roosevelt Hotel arrival center in Midtown.

“There seems to be a degree of mass confusion about where people should be, or where it's OK to be,” said Phillips.

“I've never seen anything like this before, where they start a new government program and don't explain it to anyone, including their own staff,” Goldfein added.

Mamelak says the administration created the two sites to more efficiently assist migrants reaching their 30- and 60-day shelter limits, while the administration prioritizes shelter space for the newest arrivals. Migrants who reached their time limits were previously directed to the arrival center at the Roosevelt Hotel, where hundreds of new migrants continue to show up daily.

Any additional confusion was due to the continued influx of new migrants, according to Mamelak.

“We have used every possible corner of New York City and are quite simply out of good options to shelter migrants,” she said in a statement. “For months, Mayor Adams has warned that without substantive help from our state and federal partners, this crisis could begin to play out on city streets."

"Unless those now criticizing our herculean effort have a legitimate alternative to suggest, we ask that they instead join us in calling for meaningful help and a decompression strategy from our state and federal partners," she continued. "As we have repeatedly said, a single city cannot continue to manage a national crisis almost entirely on its own.”

Phillips said some of the migrants told to give up their shelter beds are now sleeping on the streets and at sites managed by overstretched nongovernmental organizations.

Goldfein said others are leaving the city entirely due to a range of issues, including an inability to find work.

Adams initially announced 60-day shelter limits for single adult migrants this summer, before shrinking the time limit to 30 days and imposing the 60-day policy on families.

On a recent afternoon outside the new “reticketing” center at the former St. Brigid School in the East Village, migrants with suitcases and backpacks awaited assistance.

Mohamed Gueidiatt, 21, stood with two other migrants — all were from Mauritania. He said they’d been living for a month at a shelter near Central Park. When they reached their 30-day stay limit, shelter staff directed them to the Roosevelt Hotel, where they were then redirected to the East Village site.

“No friend, no family,” said Gueidiatt, noting his lack of options.

None of the three had yet secured a place to sleep.