Amidst NYC hotel room shortages, 20% are migrant shelters. Mayor Eric Adams' policies raise rates, enforcing short-term rental laws, as the city faces $10 billion in migrant crisis costs.
There has never been a more expensive hotel in New York City. Unauthorized immigration is one of the causes. Graft in mayoralty is another.
The New York Times examines the current high cost of hotel rooms in New York City.
In late 2022, as thousands of migrants began to arrive in New York City, city officials scrambled to find places to house them. They quickly found takers: hotels that were still struggling to recover from the pandemic-driven downturn in tourism.
Dozens of hotels, from once-grand facilities to more modest establishments, closed to tourists and began exclusively sheltering migrants, striking multimillion-dollar deals with the city. The humanitarian crisis became the hotel industry’s unexpected lifeline in New York; the hotels became a safe haven for tens of t...