Several migrant families with children who had been bused to a newly opened shelter at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn re-boarded a bus shortly after arrival, claiming that they did not like the accommodations.
Photographed by local Brooklyn Assemblywoman Jamie Williams, migrant families arrived to the closed airfield on Sunday with their kids in tow. However, they soon made a U-turn and boarded the bus again, carrying their possessions. Williams then questioned why refugees weren’t being sheltered at the location, but a city employee disregarded her query.
“Families got off of the bus and saw the accommodations,” she said in a text message. “When they realized they wouldn’t be staying at a hotel they refused to stay and demanded to be taken somewhere else. They were not told in advance that they would be going to a tent city.”
“No women or children should be having to be bused around like this,” she said in a video. “Let them know that this is not the place for you guys to be — in an isolated area.”
While admitting that some families had expressed a desire not to come, City Hall acknowledged that there was nowhere else for migrants to go if they refused to settle at the shelter.
According to mayoral spokesman Kayla Mamelak, refugees have limited alternatives because of the shortage of space. “With more than 65,600 migrants still currently in our care, and thousands more continuing to arrive every week, we have used every possible corner of New York City and are quite simply out of good options to shelter migrants,” she said.
A hundred people, or about two dozen families, were scheduled to be taken to the location on Sunday, as originally reported by the Daily News. In contrast to traditional family shelters, Floyd Bennett Field migrants were supposed to live in groups known as pods – that have no kitchen and are not completely private.
Williams and Queens Councilmember Joann Ariola swiftly rejected Adams’ proposal regarding Floyd Bennett Field’s usage as a shelter, pointing out that the area’s classification as a floodplain was one among the many other reasons the site was inappropriate. Since then, Ariola has sued the state and the city, requesting that a judge close the site.
