Hochul: ‘Substantial’ state spending

Governor says New York covers around 45% of NYC’S migrant costs

ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul said the upcoming year’s state budget will likely include a “substantial” amount of funding for managing the influx of new migrants into the state, a crisis for which New York already has committed more than $1.7 billion in state funding.

During a news conference following a meeting with other senior state officials Tuesday, Hochul estimated that the state is shoulding about 45 percent of migrant housing costs for New York City. She specifically cited the costs for state-run facilities like the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens that has been converted into a large-scale migrant housing center.

She also pointed to funding the state has made available for legal service providers who often proffer crucial front-line legal support for migrants — including helping them file asylum claims — as well as a state Department of Labor portal that will soon connect eligible migrants with open jobs across the state.

“We know that we’ll have to hit at least a baseline of what we’ve done before,” Hochul said. “We’re estimating those estimates right now. It’ll be substantial.”

In an August memo to the White House, Hochul estimated the situation will cost the state over $4 billion in the upcoming year and she urged the federal government to cover at least some of those costs.

This week she hinted at some level of austerity during the next state budget cycle, following two years of federal cash infusions after the COVID-19 pandemic. Newly appointed budget director Blake Washington recently sent a memo to state agencies informing them to keep their budgets flat this year.

“They knew then and we’re enforcing now that that’s not the path we’re continuing on,” Hochul said, referring to record levels of state spending increases in previous budgets.

She has said that she does not anticipate budget cuts that could materially impact any agency services.

Meanwhile, the influx of immigrants into New York does not appear to be slowing down.

A looming federal government shutdown could also hinder the work of federal agencies that are already at risk of being clogged by an influx of paperwork related to migrants, further complicating efforts to get people out of shelters and into better living conditions — a major goal for both Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Separately, Adams’ administration on Tuesday announced that the city would provide lowincome and homeless city residents with housing vouchers that could be used for paying the rent in housing units across the state. Hochul later commended the move and said the policy is intended to relieve the overwhelmed shelter system, which has in recent months seen a sharp uptick in migrant residents.

“It’s not sending people against their will all across the state in buses,” Hochul said. “This is just one more opportunity to try and, as we talked about, open the back door to get more people out of the shelters and into apartments.”

Hochul acknowledged that the housing supply, even upstate, has been constrained. She tied

the voucher plan to a push for increased housing development statewide, long a pet project of her administration: “I want more housing built and a lot more housing that’s affordable built, and I won’t stop until we do more.”

Earlier this week, Hochul said the National Guard would deploy an additional 150 members in the state, freeing up over 200 National Guard personnel to assist with casework for the migrants currently living in New York City’s shelter system. The aim is to transition them out of city shelters as soon as possible. The state is paying the cost for over 2,000 National Guard personnel working with migrants.

Many of those migrants are eligible for work authorization permits after President Joe Biden announced the Venezuelan nationals who arrived in the United States before July 31 will be classified as having temporary protective status, which allows them to skirt some of the bureaucratic hurdles associated with obtaining work permits.

Both Hochul and Adams have called on the White House to expedite the work authorization process, with Hochul on Tuesday highlighting that over 400,000 jobs are open in New York’s labor market.