No room at the inn? By Ruth King
Recently a friend arrived in New York with reservations at a “boutique” midtown hotel in Manhattan. Reservations were hard to obtain for a five-day visit as tourist season has recovered from pandemic-driven downturns. Early next morning he checked out, describing all-night noise in the halls with garbage and bottles strewn about. Getting reasonable priced hotel rooms was impossible and he left the city earlier than scheduled.
Since 2022, under “The Sanctuary Hotel Program,” hotels that agreed to shelter illegals received $139 and $185 a night per room, occupied or not, under a $980 million contract with the city. When thousands of illegals began to arrive in New York City, many hotels, from swanky to just passable, began sheltering illegals and dramatically cut rooms available to tourists.
Under its Right to Shelter policy, New York City guarantees housing and social services for illegals and in May 2023, the once stately and elegant Roosevelt Hotel, which was closed during the COVID pandemic, reopened as a registering service for immigrants providing health evaluations and supplies and aid in registering minors in public schools. 175 rooms for children and families grew to approximately 850 with maximum capacity causing overcrowding and straining all essential facilities. The hotel was totally trashed and closed. Mayor Eric Adams demanded temporary suspension of the Right to Shelter policy, but extended a city contract with more hotels for immigrants which was enthusiastically backed by the hotel unions and industry.
This was supposed to finish this year but will now end in August 2026 and cost a total $1.365 billion — almost five times the original price tag of $237 million.
Since 2022, approximately 90 thousand immigrants have come to New York City, which expects to welcome an estimated 64.5 million tourists in 2024.
What could go wrong? Everything did, and the New York Times noted:
Two years in, as the city’s peak tourism season is about to begin, the migrant crisis has helped dramatically shift the hotel landscape in New York. The conversion of hotels to shelters has sharply decreased the supply of rooms just as tourist demand has risen, nearly to prepandemic levels, and is projected to match a record high.”
By June 2024, one of every five New York City Hotels is now a illegal shelter. The cost to the city is $10 billion for three years billed to taxpayers, and illegals continue to pour into New York city boroughs and suburbs. The city government now pays about $385 a night per migrant family that needs housing and feeding.
The average daily rate for a hotel stay in New York City climbed to $301.61 per person in 2023. At the same time, in 2024 uncontrolled immigration and the alleged right to shelter have caused a paucity of rooms available to tourists who are vital to New York’s economy including restaurants, theaters, shops, and transportation.
The spillover is also straining health services, public schools, social services, and housing.
Occupancy in hotel rooms for illegals causes a loss of 16,532 hotel rooms, leaving only 121,677 hotel rooms for visitors.
At present in New York City, the planned 47 hotels in various stages of plans, permits, and construction, will add 7,655 rooms, but who knows how many illegals will arrive through our porous and uncontrolled borders, and how many hotels will yield to the pressure and guaranteed income and become shelters.
If you are lucky enough to get a hotel room, while walking there you will encounter homeless Americans, including veterans who are neglected and abandoned without funding and succor. No room at the inn for them and no American plan.
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