An upstate county is blocking New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ bid to shunt Big Apple homeless residents north, calling the move yet another flagrant attempt to shift the migrant crisis elsewhere.
The Democratic mayor announced last week that city housing vouchers for the homeless could now be used outside of the five boroughs — to open shelter space for the wave of migrants flooding into the city from the country’s southern border.
But Republican Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente fired back with an emergency order saying no voucher would be accepted on his turf without his say-so — and then only after needy locals get first dibs at any open slots, according to a report by the Oneida Daily Dispatch.
“This is just a veiled attempt by Mayor Adams to pass New York City’s migrant crisis on to upstate counties,” Picente said. “This action is due to the complete failure of federal government policy and lack of leadership in Albany.”
Upstate counties have already been pushing back hard against Adams’ earlier attempts to relocate asylum seekers by busing them to other areas of New York.
Adams has appealed to Gov. Kathy Hochul to intervene and force counties outside the city to take in a share of the more than 110,000 border migrants who have arrived in New York City needing help since spring 2022, to no avail.
So last week, Adams hatched the plan to instead move some of the city’s homeless to other jurisdictions to open up space in the Big Apple’s overburdened shelter system, which currently has more than 60,000 migrants still in its care.
“We hope our partners across the state will greet these longtime New Yorkers with open arms and good job opportunities,” Adams said in a statement Sept. 26.
“These reforms will give longtime New Yorkers the ability to move out of our city’s shelter system to other parts of the state with more affordable housing options, while simultaneously opening up space in our city’s shelter system for the approximately 10,000 migrants who continue to arrive in the city seeking shelter month after month,” the statement said.
But not so fast, Picente said.
“Oneida County has the same capacity issues as New York City, and this maneuver to push their homeless into our community would not only ravage our ability to serve our people in need but would devastate the affordable housing market and incentivize landlords to displace good local tenants,” the county executive said.
Under Picente’s executive order, Oneida has the right to refuse New York City housing vouchers and can be given 30 days to offer any available rental space to clients from its own Department of Family & Community Services.
Any violation of the order is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 per day.
In May, Oneida officials issued an emergency order prohibiting migrants and asylum seekers from being shipped to the county and barring shelter, motel and campground owners from providing accomodations.
