The sputtering attempt to convince migrants to leave New York

Good morning. It is Wednesday. Today we’ll find out about a $25 million program that’s struggling to relocate immigrant families in New York City. We also get details on the proposed congressional map for New York State, which Democrats hope will allow them to retake the House of Representatives in November.

Sury Saray Espine, above, with her children, is a rare success story in a state program designed to help migrants. She and her family spent 13 months in a homeless shelter in New York City before moving to an apartment on Long Island, thanks to a $25 million program created to relocate migrant families and ease pressure on the city’s shelter system . The program covers rent when a family moves out of a shelter.

I asked Dana Rubinstein — a Metro reporter who looked at the program in detail with Andy Newman and Wesley Parnell — to explain its shortcomings.

The state emergency services commissioner said in November that this program was not working. Why not?

There are so many reasons. Many immigrants don’t want to leave New York City, where there are jobs, where you can get around without a car and where their children attend public schools. Buffalo may be New York’s second largest city, but it’s not a place with an international reputation.

However, that is only part of the problem. The state only sends migrants to counties where county administrators are open to the idea, which is few. Last year, an attempt by Mayor Eric Adams to send migrants to hotels in the northern provinces was met with resistance. Dozens of local governments across the state have issued executive orders to prevent migrants from moving there.

How did the officials running this program avoid re-igniting these tensions?

The state reached out to counties that appeared open to migrant settlement. That’s why this program only operates in five of the state’s 62 counties.

Two of them, Suffolk and Westchester, have relatively high rents because they are close to the city. The proximity makes them desirable. But in Central Islip – where Espine moved, in Suffolk County – the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $2,144 per month, according to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. In Buffalo it’s $992 a month.

And this week, after our article about the program was published, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine issued a statement saying that moving Espine’s family to Suffolk may have violated an executive order he issued on Feb. 6 .

But the program has done little to alleviate pressure on the shelter system. Only 174 households have found a home. That’s only about 14 percent of the number the program is supposed to help.

It is not clear whether the state has effectively brought the program to the attention of migrants.

The state blames the city for not sending enough potential participants. For its part, City Hall has expressed impatience that the program is being rolled out slowly.

Finally, there is the matter of the landlord. New York has a serious housing crisis, and it’s not always easy to find apartments that will be affordable after years of housing subsidies expire.

It is also not always easy to find landlords who are willing to welcome a tenant who does not yet have a work permit and therefore has an uncertain earning potential.

The program aims to reduce the migrant shelter population in New York City. What happens if people in shelters don’t want to leave the city?

The state has made it abundantly clear that this is a strictly voluntary program. No migrant has to leave New York City, which has a long history of absorbing large numbers of immigrants.

The problem for most migrants in shelters is that the federal government lets them into the country but does not immediately grant them work permits. So they are left in limbo, unable to get a legitimate job that would provide the income to pay the rent.

Finding apartments for people in shelters is also cheaper, right?

That is interesting. This is a $25 million program aimed at resettling 1,250 families. That works out to $55 per household per night.

New York City spends nearly $400 per household per night keeping migrants in shelters.

What has the state done to encourage migrants to leave shelters – and landlords to host them?

The state has started producing some marketing videos showcasing these provinces to migrants. They also offer bonuses of up to $15,000 to hosts for participating in the program.

Illinois has found apartments for nearly 4,700 households after starting a similar program 14 months ago. How different is the New York program?

It’s certainly different.

The Illinois program is less restrictive in many ways. It resettles both individual migrants and families. It is open to all migrants who arrived in Chicago before a certain date, not just those who have already applied for asylum and are on their way to work permits, as in New York.

And while the New York program aims to move migrants outside of New York City, the Illinois program allows migrants to resettle in Chicago as well as elsewhere in Illinois.

Weather

Expect showers with a high in the low 60s. Rain will continue overnight as temperatures drop into the low 30s.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In effect until March 24 (Purim).

The latest New York news

On Monday, Democrats in New York said no to a congressional map proposed by the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission.

On Tuesday, they proposed where they wanted to draw new district lines. The plan showed surprising restraint. There were calls for only a minor tilt in places that would favor the Democratic candidates.

Democratic leaders are counting on the redistricting to help them regain the majority in the House of Representatives. But they don’t want another down-to-earth lawsuit like the one in 2022, which was initiated by Republicans and ultimately cost Democrats seats in the House of Representatives.

If the Democrats’ plan is adopted, the biggest changes will affect Central New York and Long Island. With relatively small shifts, the Democrats’ map would leave Rep. Brandon Williams, the Republican incumbent in Syracuse, vulnerable to a challenge. The new map would also make the district that Rep.-elect Tom Suozzi won in a special election two weeks ago more Democratic. Suozzi will be sworn in today.

My colleague Nicholas Fandos writes that Dave Wasserman, a leading House of Representatives election analyst, called the proposed redistricting a “mild/moderate gerrymander.” But Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard law professor who studies the issue, described it as “pretty much a model of neutrality.”

Privately, Democrats close to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said the proposed map was a targeted improvement that could survive the kind of legal challenge that torpedoed the much more aggressive redistricting plan Democrats pushed for two years ago .

METROPOLITAN diary

To answer

Dear Diary:

This happened years ago, when I was still dependent on an answering service that employed real people to answer calls and take messages.

I was at a McDonald’s near my apartment, at the intersection of West 71st Street and Broadway. As usual there was a line. The man in front of me at the counter took forever to order.

“Why does it take so long?” I muttered under my breath through clenched teeth at a barely audible volume. “Come already.”

The man turned around.

“Hey, you’re Kevin Goldman,” he said. ‘I recognize your voice. I’ll be at your answering machine and we’ll talk when you get your messages.”

His food arrived and somewhat awkwardly I stepped up to order. Shortly afterwards I bought an answering machine.

–Kevin Goldman

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send your entries here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.