Some 500 asylum-seekers slept in a school gym on Staten Island over the weekend. By Monday city officials had identified six more gyms, all in Brooklyn, to cope with an evolving emergency.
Seven public school gyms are now either in use as emergency shelter for migrants or are being readied for use, all but one of them in Brooklyn — prompting pushback from parents and local officials.
Over the weekend, as border restrictions known as Title 42 expired, agencies transported migrants to P721R Richard H. Hungerford School on Staten Island, a City Hall official confirmed, quickly filling it to its 500-person capacity.
...The decision by the administration of Mayor Eric Adams to resort to school gyms — after months of housing migrants in hotels, homeless shelters and facilities such as the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal — came with little notice to parents, school administrators and local elected officials, prompting alarm and frustration.
“Given all the potential facilities available, I don’t understand why primarily elementary schools are being used,” said Jessamyn Lee, 48, a Brooklyn public school parent who sits on the Panel for Education Policy.
...Adams’ office has not provided an updated count of recent arrivals, though through early May, more than 37,500 asylum seekers were staying in city shelters. Last week, Adams said the city had run out of space in hotels, with at least 140 emergency shelters in operation across the five boroughs, and was scrambling to identify facilities that have open layouts with more than 10,000 square feet...more
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