Posted on 05/17/2023 4:36:07 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The city is unique in the country, and in the Western world, in that it guarantees all comers shelter immediately, no questions asked. And they keep coming.
This week, after a pandemic hiatus of more than three years, one of New York’s marquee hotels will reopen its 1,025 rooms to guests. The Roosevelt Hotel, celebrating its centennial next year, has earned a place in Gotham history. The stately mid-rise limestone and brick edifice—designed as part of Grand Central Terminal’s “Terminal City” complex, just steps from the North American long-distance train hub—was home to Guy Lombardo’s band for three decades, hosted New York governor Thomas Dewey when he prematurely declared victory over Harry Truman in the 1948 presidential election, and served as Mayor-elect John Lindsay’s victory stage and transition headquarters in 1965. Though worn with age, the hotel, before the pandemic, garnered praise from travelers: a quiet, reliable property with a low-three-figures-a-night price tag. The reopening should be a sign of New York’s post-2020 progress—except that it’s opening not to paying customers but to migrants crossing the southwest U.S. border and making their way north in search of New York City’s free, no-questions-asked shelter. So instead of being a symbol of New York’s post-pandemic resurgence, the reopening has become a sign of Mayor Eric Adams’s failure to lead on his administration’s biggest emergency to date.
Adams didn’t create the border crisis, of course. Under President Biden, attempted and successful border crossings are up significantly compared with the Trump administration. During the five months of fiscal year 2020 that occurred before Trump imposed pandemic restrictions—from October 2019 to February 2020—“encounters” between border-patrol agents and migrants ran slightly above 200,000; during the similar five months of the current fiscal year, they topped 1 million. Most such encounters have ended in a release into the United States; 1.8 million people released in the country in the past two years await court dates for asylum claim, some scheduled as late as 2035. Others cross entirely undetected and unrecorded. Adams expects that the number of migrants will “rapidly accelerate” as Biden stops removing some migrants under a public-health rule that Trump invoked.
But Adams is making the crisis worse for New York. Though he blames Texas governor Greg Abbott and other Republicans for offering migrants free bus transport to New York, he ignores the reason that migrants find such transport so attractive. New York City is unique in the country, and indeed in the Western world, in that it guarantees all comers shelter: immediately, no questions asked.
The media often incorrectly report that this shelter system is an ironclad “right,” imposed by a court under a reading of the state constitution’s obligation to provide “aid, care, and support of the needy.” It is not. In 1981, in response to a lawsuit by homeless advocates, the city voluntarily agreed to provide universal shelter, first for men, and two years later for women and families, before the state’s top court ever issued a ruling.
The NYC voters are getting what they voted for. Though not hard enough.
They’re being sent to my old hometown. I live in the suburbs...thank goodness.
No problem servicing the illegals…just evict the homeless veterans.
After all, what have they done for us, lately?
Wetbacks living the dream!
How long before the hotel becomes a cess pool of filth? And how will they staff it? I certainly wouldn't want to work there...
After the guests get done with the place, it ought to be in just the right condition to house the politicians in urgent need of sanctuary.
They can then get to work fixing it up. Builds character.
Free, cough my tax dollar funded, bus trips should be to Biden’s front door.
Instead of NY City, the southern governors should be busing the illegals to Delaware. How long would the Biden supporters put up with that? It would be a hoot to see the Rehoboth Beach residents dealing with the criminal invaders. The LGBTQXYZ crowd would have a cow.
They could send all of them to Brandon Falls.
LOL, now that's funny. Thanks for making my day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.