Two more city migrant shelters have closed up shop as the flood of asylum-seekers into the Big Apple continues to plummet.More than 400 families were being sheltered at the 19-story, 506-unit complex at 1760 Third Ave. at East 97th Street, once a massive dormitory for CUNY Hunter and Baruch College students and other education entities.
Meanwhile, the El Rancho hotel at 37-01 White Plains Road in The Bronx had served 15 families.
- Both ceased operating as migrant shelters last week, city officials said.
- A representative from El Rancho said the hotel, which is now empty, will start renovations to prepare for reopening again as a commercial hotel.
- It is unclear what the former CUNY dorm, now in private hands, might be used for.
- More than 500 new migrants entered the city’s care from Nov. 11-17, but over 1,100 migrants left the system at the same time.
Those figures are in sharp contrast to the situation in January, when roughly 4,000 new migrant arrivals were flooding the city on a weekly basis.
Earlier this month, two other hotels serving migrants stopped operating as emergency shelters: the 23-room Hotel Merit in Times Square and the 73-room Quality Inn JFK Airport.
That’s a total of four shelters that have closed as the flow of migrants has significantly slowed.
“New York City is leading the nation in response to the migrant and asylum seeker humanitarian crisis, providing shelter to thousands of people in our care across the five boroughs,” a rep for Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement to The Post.
“Thanks to our resettlement efforts, intensive case management, and national-leading Asylum Application Help Center, we continue to make strides in consolidating and streamlining our migrant shelter operations allowing us to focus more on helping those in our care move on to their next steps.”
Adams previously committed to closing all 10 of the city’s migrant shelters upstate in Albany, Dutchess, Erie, Orange, and Westchester counties next month.
The city also plans to close Randall’s Island’s massive migrant encampment in February after dramatically cutting back the number of migrants sheltered there.
The number of hotels and facilities needed for city migrant shelters could drop even more dramatically early next year when President-elect Donald Trump and his border czar Tom Homan take office, having promised an aggressive crackdown on crossings as well as deportations of illegal migrants.
Still, the Adams administration said it plans to continue the use of hotels as emergency shelters for the foreseeable future.
New York City has indicated it is seeking 14,000 hotel rooms to shelter migrants through 2025 — as housing costs for the asylum-seekers for the past three years is set to surpass $2.3 billion.
About 150 hotels are currently sheltering migrants, and total spending on migrant services in the Big Apple will hit $6.1 billion, according to city data.
But city officials are expected to lower projected costs in updated budget reports, given the substantial reduction of migrants being cared via housing, food and other costs.
