New York City will continue to rent hotel rooms to accommodate incoming undocumented immigrants. The Department of Homeless Services (DHS) has issued a procurement notice seeking to renew contracts with hotel operators to provide 14,000 rooms for immigrants until next year.
According to the New York Post, the Department of Homeless Services in New York City stated in its bid notice that, in order to address the current emergency situation, they are seeking a vendor to bid to assist in renting hotel rooms and managing them to continue the immigrant housing program. The city government has signed three contracts with the New York City Hotel Association (NYCHA) where they rent 14,000 rooms in 150 hotels through the association’s network to accommodate immigrants. The average cost of housing an immigrant in a room per night is $352, and the city government pays the hotel association foundation about $100,000 a month as compensation for managing the existing three contracts. Vijay Dandapani, President and CEO of the Hotel Association, has stated that the association will bid again.
The city government estimates that the total expenditure on immigrant housing in the past two years and the current fiscal year (from July this year to June next year) will exceed $2.3 billion, with most of it going towards paying for hotel rent. Adding other immigrant services, the total expenditure over the three years will reach $5.76 billion. Nicole Gelinas, a senior researcher at the Manhattan Institute, told the New York Post that taxpayers cannot indefinitely foot the bill for housing undocumented immigrants, and hotels should serve the tourism industry, not immigrants. The city government should stop using hotels as shelters by the end of this year.