New York City suggests housing migrants in jail shuttered after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide
New York City officials want to ease pressure on overcrowded homeless shelters by housing migrants in a federal jail that once held mobsters, terrorists and Wall Street swindlers before being shut down after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.
The proposal, suggested in an Aug. 9 letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration, came as New York struggles to handle the estimated 100,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since last year after crossing the southern U.S. border.
The city is legally obligated to find shelter for anyone needing it. With homeless shelters full, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has taken over hotels, put cots in recreational centers and school gyms and created temporary housing in huge tents.