$387 A DAY PER HOUSEHOLD
Thought of starting over makes them nix tix out of city
Migrants booted from the Big Apple’s overflowing shelter system on Tuesday said they’re turning down the city’s offer for free plane or bus tickets out of town because it’s too hard to start over elsewhere.
Of the more than two dozen asylum-seekers The Post spoke to outside an intake center in the East Village, most said they preferred to stay put and try their luck in New York City — even if it meant going more weeks without a shelter bed.
“Why leave here and start all over?” said Jesus Hernandez, 40, of
Venezuela, adding he expects to wait four days to a week to find out about where he’ll be living next.
Some joked the dating scene is what’s keeping them here.
“I want job. I want to stay. I want wife, too,” said one Senegalese migrant, who didn’t want to be named.
The Post spoke to asylum-seekers and staff at the former St. Brigid’s School on East Seventh Street after it was revealed fewer than 2% of migrants there were willing to relocate to another city after maxing out their 30-day shelter stay.
“I haven’t heard of anyone taking the ticket,” said an employee at the intake center, who didn’t want to be named. “They come here and all want to stay.”
The newly released city emergency management agency data showed an average of 30 migrants per day — out of the 1,600 at the intake center — were taking up the city’s offer to relocate elsewhere.
Hundreds of single adult asylumseekers go to the center each day in a bid to re-enter the city’s shelter system after Mayor Adams’ administration moved to limit their stays to 30 days to free up space.
At least one migrant from Venezuela said the support and money he’s
received from the Big Apple so far has made him unmotivated to leave.
“I’m grateful for the help. Of course, I’d love to go see some other part of the country, but I can’t complain about my time here,” said Alex Puerta, 49. “Once I start working full time I definitely won’t leave. But permission to work is taking a long time.”
Puerta’s friend Hernandez, a former travel agent, also said he’s still waiting on permission to work after being in the city for six months. Puerta said he hauls an air mattress around for them to sleep on.
“I haven’t had to sleep on the street — thank God — I sleep in churches in Harlem or The Bronx when they kick us out,” he said.
Meanwhile, Heiddi Gomez, a 28year-old trans woman from Venezuela, said she was grateful for the city’s free health care and was unwilling to accept the free ticket offer because her documents are more complicated than others’.
“I need to file my documents under my old name, too, I am waiting to change my name and complete my transition,” Gomez said.
The city has so far paid $7.6 million to re-ticket migrants out of the Big Apple since the spring of 2022, according to City Hall.
NO, THANKS: Migrants (like this group in Manhattan) say they don’t want to take free tickets out of town mainly because they don’t want to start over somewhere else. Others said they are optimistic about finding jobs and wives here. “Why leave here and start over?” one man asked.