New York has been gripped by the consequences of a migrant surge, but at least one of the stories defining it has been severely discredited as of late.
The story that outraged many that said hotels in upstate New York were throwing out homeless veterans to make room for migrants turned out to be false. That’s according to a local news outlet.
New York state lawmaker Brian Maher, a Republican, told The Times-Union the story was fallacious after he spoke with Sharon Toney-Finch, the CEO of Orange County nonprofit Yerik Israel Toney Foundation. Toney-Finch’s story set off a media frenzy this week that was first reported by the New York Post last week. But under pressure from Maher to provide evidence, she unraveled emotionally and failed to provide any actual evidence.
Cracks in the story also emerged after an investigation by another local newspaper, the Mid Hudson News. The managers of the hotel told the paper the story wasn’t true. A receipt purporting to show that the Crossroads Hotel had been paid $37,800 to house the veterans appeared to have been sloppily doctored.
In a follow-up report Friday, the Mid-Hudson News reported that several men staying at a homeless shelter in Poughkeepsie, New York, had come forward to say they were recruited to pretend they were among the veterans kicked out of the hotel. The paper quoted some of the men as saying they were offered $200, food and alcohol to take part in the ruse.
This matches the experience of Maher, who talked to the veterans who claimed they were thrown out of the Crossroads Hotel in the city of Newburgh, and the revelations were just as shocking. At least one of the purported veterans said they were paid by Toney-Finch to lie about being thrown out. And staff at Crossroads Hotel and two other hotels confirmed they never had dealings with the nonprofit or never housed any veterans.
Maher said he was “devastated and disheartened” to learn the truth.
“This is something I believe hurt a lot of people,” the New York State lawmaker said.
The sensational story about displaced veterans was first reported by the New York Post last week.
Even with this story being seemingly debunked, a migrant crisis is still engulfing the city. Mayor Eric Adams and his administration offered few details on Wednesday about how New York City plans to address it. Almost every idea proposed has caused an uproar.
“We’re going to look at everything,” Adams said at an unrelated morning press conference in Harlem. “And as we roll out what we’re doing, we will announce, but right now, everything.”
The mayor on Tuesday said the city was looking at 20 public school gyms to use as emergency sites. The number of migrants arriving daily has increased from around 200 to as many as 700.
There are 41,500 migrants currently under city care. The new arrivals have forced the Adams administration to contend with new layers of a crisis. The city had spent $1 billion addressing it so far.
