NYC NOW - Midday News: Council Speaker Adams Pushes for Expanded Library Hours, Construction Deaths Rise Across New York, High Winds Prompt Safety Warnings, and NYC Closes Large Migrant Shelters

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is pushing a plan to expand seven-day-a-week service at New York City’s public libraries. Meanwhile, a new report finds construction worker deaths in New York State jumped from 50 to 74 in a year, with safety advocates blaming reduced oversight and enforcement. Also, New York City is warning property owners and construction companies to secure their sites ahead of strong winds expected to reach 45 mph. Plus, as fewer migrants seek shelter in the city, officials are shutting down nearly all large shelters that housed more than 1,000 people. WNYC’s Arya Sundaram reports on what this means for the city’s migrant response.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Tuesday, March 4th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. City Council Speaker Adrian Adams has a plan to expand seven-day-a-week service at New York City Libraries. WNIC's Elizabeth Kim reports. In a preview shared exclusively with WNYC, the speech. will announce a $2 million proposal to expand seven-day service to 10 additional library branches citywide. Only 21 libraries out of more than 200 branches are currently open seven days a week.

Mayor Adams's preliminary $15 billion budget doesn't seek to change funding for libraries. The mayor reversed library cuts last year after a public outcry over Sunday closures. The speaker is set to announce the plan during today's state of the city. city address. Her speech is expected to draw extra attention this year as she weighs a potential run for mayor. It's getting deadlier to do construction work in New York State. The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health says it's the number of construction workers who died in the state grew from 52-74 between 2022 and 2023. Nykosh blames a decrease in oversight and funding for enforcement.

And New York City officials are warning property owners and construction companies to secure their sites and equipment due to forecast high winds. The City Department of Building says heavy winds of up to 45 miles an hour could start tonight and continue through tomorrow. Officials say they'll perform spot checks of construction sites across the city to assess risks and violations that could lead to penalties and stop work orders. 47 and partly sunny now, partly sunny today and 53 and windy, then tomorrow even warmer and even greater wind. Stay close. There's more after the break.

Here on WNYC, I'm Tiffany Hanson. New York City is closing nearly all of its large migrant shelters housing over 1,000 people. The downsizing comes as fewer migrants are arriving and seeking shelter in the city. WNYC's ARIA Sundrum covers immigration here in New York City, and she's with us today to talk about these closures. Hi, Aria. Hi, Tiffany. Before we get to the closures, let's just remind folks why the city opened these large shelters to begin with. So as you probably remember two years ago, large numbers of migrants started coming to New York City and applying for shelter. And pretty soon, the city ran out of space in traditional homeless shelters.

So city officials turned to some creative ad hoc. solutions to find everyone a bet, like converting hotels and office buildings into shelters and building these sprawling multi-thousand-person tent camps. And they even bypassed city sheltered size restrictions to do so. So city laws actually require shelters to house no more than 200 people. But Mayor Adams issued an emergency executive order early on to suspend those laws because of the sheer number of people coming into the city. Well, let's get specific here. Which migrant shelters are you talking about that are closing. So the city has closed or is closing about a quarter of its migrant shelters. That's roughly 50 sites by the end of June. And a number of the mega shelters are closing. So nine out of 10 shelters

housing over 1,000 people are closing by the end of June as well. That includes, for example, a 3,000 bed tent camp on Randall's Island and an office building turned shelter with over 2,000 bets in Clinton Hill. and this nearly 3,000-person hotel turned migrant shelter in Midtown at the Roosevelt Hotel. This site also actually operated as an intake center for the vast majority of new migrants seeking shelter in the city, and it became kind of a symbol of the migrant crisis in New York City. Well, I mentioned in the open that there are fewer migrants coming into the city. Is that really the reason why they're closing? That's exactly it, at least according to city officials.

So fewer migrants coming to New York City and seeking shelter here, but the number of migrants staying in city shelters has been on the decline for over seven months. Right now, there's about 45,000 migrants living in city shelters. That's down from a high of about 70,000 in January last year. And on average, more people are leaving the shelter system each week than entering. And that's currently an average about 300 migrants per week applying for shelter in the city, and that's down from a high of about 4,000. And that's in part because of a major dip in border crossing starting around last summer.

So last spring, President Biden issued an executive order that drastically limited asylum. And now, of course, President Trump has effectively banned most avenues to apply for asylum. So that means fewer people coming to New York. And as more people leave, that means the city can downsize. Also, I think it's worth noting that shelter locations are supposed to be private. But it's almost impossible to keep that a secret when there are thousands of people in just such a small radius. And some city officials worried that under the Trump administration, migrants at these highly publicized sites would be be sitting ducks for immigration enforcement. So that was another impetus to close these sites.

Oh, gotcha. All right. So for folks who have not visited these mega shelters, these shelters that house more than 1,000 people, just describe for us what life is like there. Sure. So at many of the sites for single adults, people have been living in congregate settings. So imagine dozens, hundreds of rows of cots lined up next to each other at a massive building or tent. And people are constantly coming in and out throughout the day to drop off their kids from school or, leaving or arriving back from their jobs as delivery drivers or at construction sites or elsewhere. And there's often a lot of people crowded outside, especially when it's warm. So at the Randall's Island tent camp that I visited quite a bit, there were often people listening to music, playing

chess and cutting each other's hair. You know, some people actually set up a makeshift market outside to sell cold sodas and food. In one vendor I spoke to hauled a bunch of chips and drinks in a shopping car from a Costco miles away. And with all these people also came a lot of complaints from neighbors, of course, so about overcrowding or excess trash and crime. And at the Randall's Island site, at least, you know, the per person crime rate didn't actually rise at all, but there were a number of high-profile incidents, like a deadly shooting there and other sites that certainly raised alarm bells for neighbors. Well, what is next for the city? They've said they're going to close these sites, so how is this going to work? You know, that is a great question. And, you know, there are some advocates,

namely the legal aid society, who question whether the city will even have enough space to house everyone, closes all these other shelters. You know, even as it is closing all these shelters, it's also opening another one, a 2,200 bed shelter for men in the South Bronx. And it's mainly for people who are displaced after these other sites close. The ultimate goal is to close down all the large shelters and have just one agency, the Department of Homeless Services, manage all of these migrant shelters. You know, right now migrant shelters are being managed by a couple different agencies, but we are not close to that anytime soon. So currently the regular DHS system houses,

has a little over a thousand vacancies, and that's just not enough to house the tens of thousands of people and shelters currently run by other agencies. Ariasundrum covers immigration here in New York City for WNYC. You can read her reporting, including all that she's done covering these migrant shelter closings right now at our news site, Gothamus.com.

Ariah, thanks. Thanks, Stephanie. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.