Tents pitched at Creedmoor latest housing for migrants seeking asylum in New York City

The first hundred of over 1,000 homeless migrants were to begin arriving Tuesday to be sheltered under tents pitched on Creedmoor Psychiatric Center’s campus near the Queens-Nassau border, according to the Adams administration.

With New York City and the state scrambling to find room for an ever-increasing migrant head count, the tents are the latest accommodations to shelter, feed and otherwise care for tens of thousands who have arrived since last spring. Most crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, originally from Latin America and Africa.

Almost 100,000 migrants have arrived in the city, nearly 60% of whom have nowhere else to stay but the city’s homeless shelter system, which is now providing the tents. Thousands of new migrants arrive each week, with no end in sight.

The city is under a decades-old, rare-in-the-nation mandate to provide shelter to whomever needs it, and to shelter the influx, the city has gone beyond traditional homeless shelters such as office buildings, school gyms or hotels.

Also opening this month: tents, for as many as 2,000 migrants, on Randalls Island.

At Creedmoor, in Queens Village, weatherized tents are pitched in a parking lot. Migrants are welcomed and issued an ID card. Cots are packed edge-to-edge for sleeping, with a lockbox for storage. There are chairs and tables for meals. The tents house single men only.

“We’re going to do a communicable disease screen for you to make sure that you don't have any communicable diseases before you enter the facility. Then, we’re going to have a sit-down discussion with you about what your goals are, how we can help you to complete your journey as fast as possible,” Dr. Ted Long, an executive at the city’s public hospital system who has been helping oversee the migrant crisis, said at a news conference. He added: “We placed the beds so that we can help as many asylum-seekers in this facility as possible.”

“Very few” of the migrants have formally filed for asylum, according Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom. U.S. law gives migrants one year from the time of border crossing to apply, or the right is generally forfeited. Newsday reported in June that most migrants are unlikely to be granted asylum, but that an unknown number are likely to stay in the country illegally regardless.

Mayor Eric Adams has pleaded, mostly unsuccessfully, for federal subsidies and space to place migrants elsewhere. He has sought, also mostly unsuccessfully, to relocate migrants elsewhere in the state, including on Long Island.

Fabien Levy, Adams' deputy mayor for communications, on Tuesday said that the tents reflect how the city is running out of room and is “at the bottom of the barrel.”

“For those who are criticizing — we’re out of good options. We’re out of OK options. These are the only options left,” Levy said. “It’s a question of, do you want people sleeping in the street? Or do you want people sleeping on a cot? I’d rather have people have a safe place under a roof to have a place to rest their head at night.”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.