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That’s right. New York City apparently has a new message.
This time the message is not aimed at sophisticated, moneyed tourists. Rather its goal is to warn immigrants not to come visit New York. At all.
Exacerbated at what he characterizes as a “disaster,” NYC Mayor Eric Adams is planning to dispense police-tape yellow flyers at the city’s 188 sites for housing migrants and at America’s overrun, purely notional southern border, reports Lionel Shriver in Spectator.
Multi Language Warning:
“Since April 2022, over 90,000 migrants have come to New York City. There is no guarantee we will be able to provide shelter and services to new arrivals. Housing in NYC is very expensive. The cost of food, transportation, and other necessities is the highest in the United States. Please consider another city as you make your decision about where to settle in the US.”
Well, that’s one colossal headache sorted, then. Why didn’t anyone think of flyers before?
A Thankless Task
It sort of reminds Mr. Shriver of when (1973) he was paid a “pittance” for distributing flyers for a Little Richard concert. It became, as he explains, an exercise in secondary littering. What few concert announcements were accepted were thrown onto the streets, unread.
Fifty years later, is this Mayor Adam’s ingenious answer to a municipal crisis?
… aside from exhibiting a certain, well, ineffectual quality, these leaflets are brandishing the high cost of necessities at a population that doesn’t plan on paying for them.
Auld Lang Syne
Immigrants now account for more than half of inhabitants at already overflowing homeless facilities.
The city has resorted to putting up foreign arrivals in hotels. One institution recently block-booked is the Roosevelt, a majestic four-star art deco landmark near Grand Central Station. This is where for three decades the bandleader Guy Lombardo welcomed in the New Year with “Auld Lang Syne.” “The rooms are outdated but they’re gorgeous,” says a hotel security guard. “The migrants are going to think they landed in heaven. They’re never going to want to leave.”
What, Leave? Why?
Why indeed, asks Mr. Shriver.
Here is what New York provides asylum seekers:
- Free healthcare
- Free NYC ID, help
- Enrolling children in free public schools,
- Free food
- Free legal counsel
- Free accommodation in a city whose average rent for a two-bedroom flat is over $5,000 a month
- Free bikes (courtesy of Bike New York).
In the UK, they know better than to waste tax-payer money on useless flyers that will clog street drains. Fortunately, there is a barge – the Bibby Stockholm, which docked last week in Dorset, England.
(The Bibby Stockhlm) can house 500 migrants with en suite baths. The government boasts that asylum seekers will be provided with guided walks, trips to farms and sports events, festival excursions and biweekly English lessons.
In addition to three “culturally appropriate” meals a day, migrants will enjoy a 24-hour food service. They’ll have full National Health Service access, as well as an on-board nurse and clinic, and be offered nearby allotments for cultivating vegetables and flowers. (Um — many Londoners wait years for an allotment.)
The barge is kitted out with gyms, sports facilities (soccer, basketball, volleyball and netball), two TV rooms, five lounges, an IT room with laptop computers and free wifi, a courtyard with picnic tables, a multi-faith room, another room for “quiet reflection,” and a conference room bookable for meetings or hobbies. Residents are free to come and go, either on free hourly buses, or in a free taxi back if they miss the last bus home.
They may be gone for up to a week at a time, but if migrants exceed this limit the management will ring up and ask if they’re OK.
Yes, There Are a Few Problems
- Overcrowding: In the three days before the UK Home Office’s proud announcement about its new luxury barge, 1,100 Channel migrants were apprehended: more than twice the boat’s capacity.
- Money: The department is paying the NHS £1,900 (about $2,400) per bed, Dorset council £3,500 (about $4,500) per migrant plus a £380,000 (about $480,000) block grant. Maybe the barge is cheaper than hotels, but all those laptops and 24-hour nachos add up.
- Not Exactly Spotless: If New York’s experience is any guide, the Bibby Stockholm won’t stay pristine for long. According to a former worker at the Row Hotel near Times Square — housing 5,000 migrants in 1,300 rooms, for which the city pays $500 each per night — officialdom’s hospitality is prone to being abused. The Row’s rooms are strewn with rubbish, drink, clothes, guns, drug paraphernalia and used condoms, their bins overflowing with free food that the residents don’t like.
- Boiling Popular Rage: In both New York and Britain, comments after articles about the opulent Roosevelt Hotel or the amenity-richBibby Stockholm explode with an apoplectic sense of injustice and betrayal.
If this is deterrence, wonders Mr. Shriver, what does come-hither look like?
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