A bed for the night

We are all familiar with the story: a married couple, she ready to give birth, seeking out shelter in a time of dire need, finding little refuge and facing mostly apathy. No room at the inn, they were told and the couple wound up with the livestock, using a manger for their newborn. This particular iteration of the tale is of course the bedrock of a global religion, the foundation of a faith shared by billions.

Yet in the intervening millennia, a version of this story has played out again and again. It plays out today, all around the world, mostly unnoticed and unrecorded, with no traveling kings to provide comfort. For the last year and a half, it has been a viscerally familiar story to New Yorkers, who have watched as tens of thousands of asylum seekers, from countries around the globe, have finally landed here after unimaginable journeys. Many are families carrying little more than literally the clothes on their backs, having thrown their fate more or less entirely into our hands.

Despite the protesters and the bigots and the naysayers, New York has, in fits and starts, tried to extend a helping hand. More than 150,000 people have come through the city’s shelter system since the arrivals began in earnest, and thousands more arrive every week.

It has not been without strain, and regardless of any legitimate quibbles about how the city is spending and projecting costs, it’s undeniable that the aid has put pressure on the budget. The state and the federal governments must assume their share of the responsibility, both financially and with technical assistance, including concerted efforts to help place migrants in other localities.

What we shouldn’t do is toss migrants out in the cold. Something like the right to shelter agreement, a product of another era, is certainly worth reexamining. That doesn’t mean that a full suspension makes sense, nor that we should abandon the principles of an immigrant city, particularly when there are other solutions on the table.

It’s no surprise that some of the institutions that emerged from that story of the refugees and their baby in the manger — and other stories like it, of the beat-down and the put-upon who persist, by grace and grit — are those that stand ready to help the city with this challenge.

Aplan already exists, with faith-based institutions (synagogues, churches, mosques, temples) offering up 200 potential facilities that could cumulatively hold some 5,000 adult migrants at a cost far lower ($74 per night) than what the administration is paying in emergency contracts to for-profit providers ($383 per night for hotels), many of which have a middling record at best. This is in addition to the existing efforts, which despite plenty of goodwill on behalf of the congregations, have managed to house only 38 migrants.

The city must do what it can to facilitate this generous and compassionate offer of assistance, including working with the houses of worship to smooth over any logistical concerns, such as fire safety compliance. The new plan involves using fire wardens to ease code concerns, but this has been a consistent obstacle.

No one wants or should accept facilities that are unsafe for migrants, but if the only thing that’s standing in the way of housing of a not-insignificant chunk of arrivals is some sprinklers, the cost to the city would be a rounding error in the grand scheme of its migrant spending. Let it be a holiday miracle.