Our Bureau
New York, NY
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced the city will soon close six additional emergency sites dedicated to sheltering and caring for asylum seekers— including the Creedmoor Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, the last of the city’s large tent-based emergency response shelters. The closure of the final tent-based migrant shelter marks a powerful milestone in the nearly three years New York City has responded to the asylum seeker humanitarian crisis.
The ability to soon shutter operations at Creedmoor, along with the five other sites announced today, brings the total number of closures between June 2024 and June 2025 to 52— a direct result of the Adams administration’s tireless efforts to mitigate this crisis and help asylum seekers take the next steps in their journeys towards the American Dream. These efforts include expanding work authorization and pathways — leading to more than 83 percent of adults eligible for work authorization receiving or applying for it in the city’s system — and the administration’s successful asylum seeker management strategies — including reticketing, case management, and 30- and 60-day notices — resulting in sustained decreases in the number of asylum seekers in city shelters arriving at its lowest point since the height of the humanitarian response. There are currently less than 45,000 migrants receiving city shelter services, down from a high of 69,000 in January of 2024 and out of the more than 231,000 that have arrived in New York City seeking city services since the spring of 2022. The city’s efforts have directly resulted in approximately 24,000 fewer asylum seekers in the city’s care on a day-to-day basis, and allowed the Adams administration to announce multiple additional site closures in December 2024 and January 2025.
“There was never a playbook for this unprecedented response to a humanitarian crisis in our city; and no other municipality had to deal with the scale and burden of more than 230,000 people arriving with little more than the clothes on their backs and hope,” said Mayor Adams. “Because of the decisions we have made and the policies we have implemented, including opening up our tent based humanitarian relief centers and advocating for changes to national border policies, our administration has effectively moved us to the opposite side of the mountain we were forced to climb. The fact that within a span of year we will soon be closing 52 sites and shuttering the last of the tent-based facilities show both our continued progress and our continued commitment to effectively care for those who are still within our system and the communities who have supported them during their journeys.”
“Caring for these newest New Yorkers who came to us over the last few years has been a shared responsibility among all of us who love New York City and call it home,” said Mayor’s Office of Asylum Seeker Operations Executive Director Molly Schaeffer. “Today’s announcement, coupled with the dozens of other closures we are making this year, including the recently announced closures of Randall’s Island and Floyd Bennett Field, is a significant milestone and a reflection of both the hard work and effective management of an unprecedented crisis, as well as the grace of the communities that opened their arms to people in their most vulnerable moments. We could not have been successful without our local communities taking on the powerful responsibility we asked of them. As we navigate the future of our response, we continue to find creative ways to meet the needs of our guests and look to partner with the communities they now call home to do so.”
Based in Queens, on the state-run Creedmoor Mental Health Hospital campus, the facility was one of several unique tent-based structures brought online — including similar facilities on Randall’s Island and at Floyd Bennett field — to handle the unprecedented influx of asylum seeking migrants to New York City. At its height, the Creedmoor Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center sheltered more than 1,200 migrants.
Building off of the previously announced schedule of closures, the city will shutter six more sites by June 2025, bringing the total number of closures between June 2024 and June 2025 to 52. The administration is making final determinations on what new sites to close and hopes to have those sites finalized in the coming days.
Since the first asylum seekers arrived in the five boroughs in the spring of 2022, New York City has continued to focus on building the structures needed to help migrants take their next steps towards self-sufficiency. The city’s Asylum Application Help Center — a first-in-the-nation entity — has helped complete more than 96,000 applications for work authorization, temporary protected status, and asylum. The work of the New York City Department of Small Business Services and workforce development teams have secured hundreds of job opportunities for current and former asylum seekers in the city’s care, and the administration’s case management and resettlement teams — in conjunction with teams across multiple city agencies — continue to find creative ways to assist recent arrivals through direct outreach, resource fairs, and onsite English as a Second Language courses at shelters, to name a few examples.
