New York City will close a massive Brooklyn migrant shelter as the population of new arrivals in the city’s care continues to drop, City Hall announced on Friday.
The 3,500-bed Hall Street shelter in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, which has faced community opposition, is among 10 sites the Adams administration is set to close by June. The mayor’s office also plans to announce the coming shut-down of an additional three facilities in the coming days.
The latest round of shelter closures follows a 27-week decrease in newcomers living in the city’s system, according to the mayor’s office. That decline stems from stricter border policies implemented by President Biden last spring and the Adams administration’s 30-and-60-day limits on migrant shelter stays.
Adams, in a statement, said the additional closures show how his administration has “creatively” and “effectively” managed well over 200,000 migrants pouring into the Big Apple since April 2022.
“The additional closures we are announcing today, provides yet another example of our continued progress and the success of our humanitarian efforts to care for everyone throughout our system,” Adams said. “We will continue to do everything we can to help migrants become self-sufficient, while finding more opportunities to save taxpayer money and turn the page on this unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
In addition to the Hall Street Shelter, the nine other facilities the city plans to shutter are also in “oversaturated” swaths of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. They include sites such as a Brooklyn Holiday Inn Express and Manhattan’s Watson Hotel.
Those closures will equate to a 10,000-bed reduction in the city’s migrant shelter capacity, City Hall said.
The development follows the city’s previously-announced plans to close 25 other sites, including mega tent shelters on Randall’s Island and at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field.
At the same time, the administration announced it will open a new smaller-scale 2,200-bed shelter on the Bronx’s Bruckner Boulevard. The facility will be devoted to single adult male migrants transferring from the Randall’s Island shelter.
City Council Member Crystal Hudson (D), whose district includes the area where the Hall Street shelter is located, signaled relief that the city is moving to shut down the site.
“I applaud the effort to finally close the Hall Street [shelter] and end this separate and unequal shelter system for newly arrived asylum seekers,” Hudson said in a statement. “I’m glad there’s a plan to responsibly transition existing residents to a new location.”
