It Begins… NYC Gives Migrants 30 Days To Leave

New York City where there is set to be a

major change in how long migrants must

be housed in the Big Apple the New York

Times is now reporting that after 30

days adult migrants will not be allowed

to reapply for housing so New York is

giving Asylum Seekers 30 days to move

out but where are thousands of people

totally dependent upon the government

for everything supposed to just suddenly

move to and survive nobody's going to

like the answer to that

question hundreds of people taking over

the intersection of 25th Avenue and 86th

Street to stop a homeless shelter from

opening towards the end of last year

City Hall says they were receiving as

many as 4,000 migrants a week since then

the surge has slowed but City officials

believe it might pick back up again in

the summer last week I believe it was

1,300 which is still a lot of people but

now we've been able to adjust with over

200 sites this video shows the cram

sleeping conditions officials ultimately

determined the conditions were unsafe

it's just going cause more problems than

we already have but we are still seeing

about two to three buses a day still

coming into New York City homeless

shelters don't help homeless people and

we are not going to be silent about

it so the city is now moving Asylum

Seekers into apartments that it pays for

but this program only applies to

families and what nobody's talking about

is that the city has zero plans to

provide Ed for the thousands of single

adults that it's been caring for for

months but suddenly wishes weren't here

for some reason and now the city is

essentially saying to these people go

live your life be free except they can't

actually do that and that's almost as

bad of a plan as telling people they can

come here and live in a shelter forever

which was the first plan and was

completely unsustainable and critics are

saying the reaction to that these forced

evictions and homelessness is just going

to create more problems for the city

because they're following up one bad

decision with another bad decision and

you've got human beings on the other end

of this that were essentially misled and

now we're in a very tough position

because after you apply for Asylum if

you get on a bus and leave you've got to

amend all of your application paperwork

and that could cause you to get denied

and that's why even though the city is

telling people they've got to go most

people are going to try to stay and this

has people suggesting the city may have

just made the whole Asylum crisis worse

and to understand why people are saying

that you've got to realize that the

folks who are now getting evicted are

faced with the worst of choices for what

they're going to do

next

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so this here is the St Bridget Academy

it's where people who've been evicted

from shelters can go to either reapply

and try to get an exemption or where

they can go to get a plane ticket or a

bus ticket anywhere in the world but

since you can no longer reapply for

shelter and the only thing most people

are going to get from here is a plane

ticket somewhere else there's no one

waiting in line behind these barricades

and this is quite a different scene from

how things have been in months past and

makes you wonder if people aren't able

to get housing here but they want to

stay in the city where are they finding

places to Live new tonight now a small

business owner in Queens busted for

cramming dozens of migrants into two

illegal shelters says that he has a new

plan to house them legally he's

subletting to a group of African

migrants some of them unloading their

luggage tonight after a long bus so here

we have a business owner who's got an

apartment that they've set up for people

who can't get help from the city anymore

but the reason he's on the news is

because his last shelter was in an

illegal furniture store with 70 beds

inside of it a commercial space like

this no one's supposed to live here

because it's not an apartment but it had

been set up with bunk beds and sheets

and everything people were paying $300

for a spot in a bunk but the thing

nobody's talking about is that 180,000

people have come here since this Crisis

began and they came because they were

under the impression the city was going

to take care of them for as long as it

took for Asylum applications to clear

but now the city has suddenly said you

know what we're not going to help

anybody anymore and that has left a lot

of people in a really tough situation

and even though the new apartment this

individual has looks fine take a look at

what experts think might still be out

there as an option of Last Resort people

are now turning to this video shows the

cram sleeping conditions the city said

complaints LED them to SAR and the

migrants officials ultimately determined

the conditions were unsafe we

immediately you know with so many vacant

commercial stores in New York this is

definitely not a one-off scenario and

the way that these illegal shelters are

getting discovered is you'll find a

whole bunch of ebikes or moped parked

outside and you'll see lots of people

coming out of a building that shouldn't

really have anything going on inside of

it and the thing is spaces like this are

all over town but as bad as this might

sound it's not that different from how

the city's own shelters are run the only

difference is they've got the city's

stamp of approval but that approval came

with a lot of loopholes and Corner

cutting one particular facility in ganas

Brooklyn is on a parcel of land so toxic

private apartment development was never

allowed there but then because of the

humanitarian emergency they green lit

the project and allowed people to put a

shelter there and research reveals that

particular landlord has a history of

building homeless shelters for the city

and is pretty well connected so he's

making money the guy with the illegal

shelters is making money the only

difference is one is City approved and

one isn't but if people are trying to

stay in the city this might be their

only option and it's scary to think that

all of the people the city is no longer

helping could end up in exploitative

situations that's the sad reality of

this situation whether you agree with

how the city's handling this crisis or

not the people that came here thought

they were going to get help and then

suddenly yoink the help is gone towards

the end of last year City Hall says they

were receiving as many as 4,000 migrants

a week since then the surge has slowed

but City officials believe it might pick

back up again in the summer so the new

Total 184,000 Asylum Seekers and the

news reporters speculate more people are

coming and that's likely because even

though the rules for who can stay in a

shelter and for how long have changed

New York is going to remain a top

destination for those seeking Asylum

because even though the city's only

letting people stay in shelters for 30

days now there's still a massive support

network here for people people who may

not speak the language and need help

filing paperwork and look at all the

different languages the instructions are

written on here this is an international

City and there's a very good chance

folks that come here from somewhere else

will be able to connect with a local

community that can help them throughout

this process as well which means even

after all these changes to the shelter

system New York is still going to be

bearing a lot of this crisis and the

more I look into this crisis the more it

just seems like a total trap for the

very people it's supposed to assist for

example how are 70,000 people who can't

work and who may not have a college

degree or even English proficiency how

are they supposed to get a job to afford

the expensive rents here and on top of

that the city's own housing laws that

are supposed to protect vulnerable

renters have an unintended byproduct of

disincentivizing landlords from taking a

risk on folks who may have just been in

the shelter system which means they

might never find their own Apartments

even though the city's now telling them

they have to in 30

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days

while some migrants claiming Asylum can

work right away depending on where they

are coming from many can't that forces

many migrants into an informal labor

economy to try to make ends meet finding

jobs such as so the problem that a lot

of Asylum Seekers have when they look

for an apartment is that New York Is So

Pro tenant landlords are strict they

want a lot of proof of how much you make

and what your credit score is before

they'll move you in because in this city

after you live somewhere for 30 days you

have the legal right to that property

and the landlord can't AV vict you yes

in New York you have squatter's rights

now this doesn't mean Asylum Seekers

will turn into squatters if they get an

apartment but it does mean many

landlords aren't willing to take that

risk just in case it's there and these

laws that are supposed to protect people

actually make it harder for the needy to

find a place to live and it's enough of

a nightmare for people that are born and

raised in this country with a full-time

job and a salary and established credit

to get a place often times people that

make enough money for something will get

told no for having less than perfect

credit and what if you've just moved

here you don't even have credit and now

the city's telling you that in 30 days

you've got to go and find a place and

how is someone with an off the- books

job at a little restaurant supposed to

prove they make enough to afford rent

and compounding this problem for Asylum

Seekers is that New York is in the

middle of a housing crisis only 1% of

the city's apartments are available to

be rented and now people are being told

to leave a shelter and go compete for

apartments against somebody who works at

Google and might want to rent that same

apartment is it any wonder why people

are winding up in abandoned storefronts

paying money to sleep in an IKEA bunk

bed with 70 other people terrible

horrendous option but people are

actually finding help in one of the most

unlikeliest of places the auditorium of

the Reformed Church of Highland Park

holds the promise of a future in the

United States the church finds the

landlords and guarantees the funds

they're the mediator between the

landlord and the Tenant with the promise

that soon the person will be up and

running on their own here's how

interesting thing about this it's a

church in New Jersey but New Jersey is

just across the water from New York

people may be able to live in an

apartment there and still come back to

the shelter here to get their mail and a

real apartment is definitely preferable

to an illegal store or basement

apartment and the church has taken care

of the paperwork problem by guaranteeing

the rent of everybody they place but

unfortunately rents in New York are so

expensive this church would probably go

broke if they tried that the process

decentralizes the migrant intake and

most importantly encourages people to

put down Roots find work pay taxes and

you know this church run housing

operation this sounds way better than

the shelters and the illegal shelters

because it's doing the one thing no

homeless shelter does which is that it's

requiring a level of accountability on

behalf of the person that it's helping

but this actually brings up another

issue nobody's talking about which is

that New York is America's most

expensive city this is the worst

possible place you could be trapped even

if you've got an unlimited stay in a

city-run

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shelter the truth is the crisis is sort

of like the frosting on top of an

existing affordability crisis that is

here in New York and in other cities we

want people to have a safe place to

sleep at night so there you have it the

sad fact of the matter is is that no

matter what the city tells people to do

their ability to do it in America's most

expensive city where rents recently hit

$5,600 a month is probably impossible

even folks living here that make

$100,000 a year are only left with

around $36,000 of spending power after

taxes and rent and most of New York is

broke and it's not just that rents here

are insane and unaffordable when you go

to the grocery store and you try to buy

something to feed yourself that costs

more as well because the rent for that

business is expensive all of the fees

the business has to pay to exist are

higher here than elsewhere plus you've

got city taxes and not only is inflation

worse here than it is in most parts of

the country prices keep going up even on

basic city services like its broken

Transportation Network and that's why it

just seems so crazy that the city

created a population of people that were

relying on it for its help and now it's

told them hey go figure it out how are

they going to do that and how exactly

does it benefit people to be trapped in

New York City with no way to provide for

themselves we know it benefits the

system of buses and trains and planes

that bring people here we know it

benefits the homeless shelter complex

which houses people but how exactly does

it benefit the people who are dependent

upon it even the families that are still

able to reside in shelters without

eviction how is it helping them to be

there forever a lot of the migrants are

dealing with a lot of De

because of the treatment that the city

giving them they feel like there is no

one that is going to help them anymore

now here's where the real problem lies

it's in this system that brought people

here and then suddenly cut them off

obviously New York cannot house everyone

forever everyone should have known that

going into this but now that we all know

there's still no exit strategy and this

is going to lead to people doing things

they would rather not to try and survive

and many Asylum Seekers feel misled by

this whole process the promise of coming

here and getting back on your feet with

a job never materialized just ask the

people who now have to leave the shelter

system and don't have a job that pays

enough for an apartment no I'm not

advocating that New York should continue

to house everybody forever they can't

but it's almost like nobody running the

shelter system thought about what was

going to happen to the people in it when

it suddenly stopped supporting them and

it's almost as if this entire system was

designed from the very beginning to fail

for some

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reason

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so unfortunately here at the police

precinct SL impound lot for mopeds we

see signs of a system that is totally

failing the people it's supposed to help

and a broken system is why you have so

many confiscated illegal mopeds which

were being used by people to commit

crime police say it is a sophisticated

ring that started back in November so

far police have arrested seven people

connected to the robberies but they

there are still others on the loose

including the alleged ring leader CVS

2's Ali bman live so the leader of this

gang when he was eventually caught he

told the authorities that the criminal

underworld in New York was much bigger

than him in his single operation which

spanned three different states and the

crime ring he was leading could only

exist in a city like New York because

it's got a large population of

vulnerable people gangs can try to

exploit and the thieves in this gang

used these mopeds to steal purses and

phones from New Yorkers walking walking

down the street which they would then

bring back to their Hideout which was

also an apartment building that had a

whole bunch of rooms in it where they

would break into the phones and drain

people's bank accounts it's incredibly

frightening and it's unfortunate that

New York's humanitarian crisis is being

taken advantage of by criminals police

say over the past three months this

group has mostly targeted women walking

alone and have made themselves hundreds

of thousands of dollars in stolen profit

Rail video now the other thing about New

York which is why it's so easy for

illegitimate operations like this to

thrive is the on crime policies that

critics say exist here for example you

can steal under $1,000 worth of stuff

and it's only a misdemeanor which is not

a jailable bailable offense critics say

laws like this hamstring how much police

can do to protect the general public and

to the criminals on the bikes every

single person walking down the street is

essentially a bank and if there aren't

any consequences for robbing people

people are going to continue to get

robbed and this brings us back to our

original question is the system of

homeless shelters and all of the

businesses that are making money on this

designed to actually help people or is

it doing something much worse

assemblyman William Colton represents

this District this is the wrong place

and it's the wrong policy homeless

shelters don't help homeless people and

we are not going to be silent about it

so this occurred at a rally in

Bensonhurst Brooklyn where a new shelter

was being set up and even though the

city is passing laws to limit shelter

stays there's still expanding the system

by renting out new buildings and signing

new contracts whenever they can and I

don't want to see people who have

nothing ending up on the street that's

terrible but how are we going to succeed

in New York if we expand A system that

makes people homeless and are systems

like this leading to good outcomes for

people or are they actually trapping

people and messing up their lives

further and critics say a lot of

well-meaning people in New York have

actually misplaced their compassion

because these expensive systems that

take care of everything for some people

aren't really helping them and many

people are wondering what is the endgame

for a system that brings people here but

doesn't allow them to support themselves

and as great as it is that people aren't

sleeping on the streets the shelter

system is not educating people and

teaching them how to move out of that

very same system but what do you think

the city should do in terms of this

crisis should the city expand the

homeless shelter system or should they

change what it does so that it actually

helps people get on their feet and

provide for themselves and if they did

that what exactly would it look like let

me know thanks for watching I'll see you

in the next video