New York City to Use Houses of Worship to Shelter Asylum-Seekers

New York City intends to utilize 50 houses of worship to provide shelter for some 1,000 asylum-seekers beginning in July. This initiative is an attempt to mitigate the pressure on overwhelmed shelters amidst the city's substantial migrant influx, according to a report by WNYW-TV.

In addition, the city plans to establish five "daytime centers" where migrants can access resources and legal support during the day, as the houses of worship conduct services and other programs.

The city has earmarked about $125 per night for each migrant, covering expenses for laundry and security. The program, for the time being, is catering to adult men only.

This approach is significantly more cost-effective than the city's current system, which incurs an expense of approximately $380 per day for each migrant, as per WNYW's report. The overall costs are projected to escalate to $2.9 billion next year.

"We have the mission, we have the motivation, and we have the facilities to help," stated Archbishop Eugene Blount, from the Elim International Fellowship, in his conversation with WNYW.

The strategy is an extension of a long-standing program known as Love Thy Neighbor, which has already connected roughly 80 houses of worship with migrant shelters, offering food, clothing, and other forms of assistance.

Over the past year, more than 60,000 migrants have been relocated to New York City, including a staggering 4,200 in just a single week in May, according to the New York Times. The city is presently accommodating over 37,500 individuals across 120+ emergency shelters and eight larger facilities, as per the Times' report.

In May, New York began moving some migrants to surrounding suburbs and towns, attributing this move to Texas Governor Greg Abbott's unannounced dispatch of busloads of asylum-seekers to the city.