New York City is shutting down 10 more migrant shelters — including a violence-ridden Brooklyn facility — as the number of asylum seekers arriving in the Big Apple drops to an 18-month low, Mayor Eric Adams said Friday.
The controversial shelter at 47 Hall St. in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, which housed roughly 2,450 single male migrants at the peak of the crisis, is among the handful of taxpayer-funded sites expected to close in June, according to city officials.
It’s the latest batch of shelter closures announced by the city in recent months, as the stream of asylum-seekers slows.
“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 in a statement.
The troubled Hall Street shelter, which outraged locals when it started welcoming migrants in droves in mid-2023, was plagued by reports of gang-linked shootings and other crimes in what was a once-peaceful neighborhood.
City Hall beefed up security at the shelter in response the violence, but Hizzoner insisted as recently as last summer that the shelter would be unlikely to close back then because there was nowhere to move the residents.
The move to shutter the site and the nine others — including three in Brooklyn, three in Manhattan and one each in Queens, Staten Island and Yonkers — comes as the number of migrants arriving in Gotham continued to decline for the 27th straight week, Adams said Friday.
In the last week, 400 migrants came to the Big Apple, bringing the total number in the city’s care to 50,900, officials said.
The migrant population swelled to a record high of more than 65,000 in June 2023.
“Our intensive and smart efforts have helped more than 178,000 asylum seekers — 78% of the migrants who have ever been in our care — take the next steps on their journeys towards pursuing the American Dream,” 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.”