Migrants in NYC sleep in buses on street as intake center runs out of space

Groups of migrants slept in small buses parked on the street in Midtown on Saturday night after they were turned away from the city’s intake center at the Roosevelt Hotel.

Officials said there wasn’t enough space in the center, which caused long lines of asylum seekers to form outside over the weekend as they waited to find a bed in the city’s cramped shelter system.

The buses — which resemble "dollar vans" and fit about 15 people — first appeared over the weekend to give migrants waiting outside the hotel a break from a heat wave that hit the city, according to advocates. They soon turned into places to sleep overnight.

Angel Antonio Sevarino, 24, from Venezuela, on Sunday said he’s spent two days since arriving in New York waiting to for help at the intake center. He slept on a bus the night before, which he said is still an improvement from the life he left behind. He said he fled Venezuela due to political persecution.

“Basically, this process isn’t fast,” Sevarino said in Spanish. “We have to stay calm, remain good. This is still a better situation that we’re in right now.”

Some of the people who slept on the buses – mostly single men – could be seen periodically leaving the vehicles on Sunday morning to either wait in line again or stretch their legs. One man asked for directions to the closest currency exchange while another pair went into a nearby coffee shop to charge their cell phones.

The capacity problems at the Roosevelt Hotel were the latest turn in a crisis that’s worsened over the last year. Officials continue to struggle to find enough space to accommodate thousands of migrants arriving in New York City, which has a “right to shelter” rule that guarantees shelter beds to any homeless person. Mayor Eric Adams is challenging the rule in court.

Some migrants in the city have been taken upstate in recent weeks, and some who were unable to find shelter were forced to take matters into their own hands.

The lines outside the Roosevelt Hotel — which in May was established as the city’s central intake center for new arrivals in search of shelter — were slightly shorter on Sunday morning than the hundreds of people seen outside earlier in the weekend. But the crowds continued to build up again on Sunday afternoon.

Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said the smaller crowds outside the hotel wasn’t necessarily a sign that more people found their way into shelters.

“It’s definitely a very bad sign if there’s lots of people out here waiting,” said Goldfein. “But it’s not like people just sit there and wait. People have needs that they need to take care of, so the fact that people aren’t there doesn’t mean that people didn’t try to get in and – after being told they couldn’t come in – maybe they’re sleeping in a park, they’re riding the trains.”

Officials began issuing numbers to those waiting to reserve their place in the queue.

Manhattan Councilmember Keith Powers tweeted the city was looking to deploy more buses to the hotel to be used as cooling centers.

The city’s teams “run out of space every single day” for the more than 93,000 asylum seekers who have entered its intake system since last spring, according to Adams spokesperson Fabien Levy.

“Children and families continue to be prioritized and are found a bed every night,” said Levy. “While we at least offered all adults a temporary place to wait off the sidewalks last night, some may have chosen to sleep outside and, in all honesty, New Yorkers may continue to see that more and more as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive every day.” 3