‘USA TODAY’ REPORT: NY hoped to move 1,250 migrant families into apartments. Here’s [some of] what’s happened in a year.

(PHOTO: Hundreds of migrants lined up on sidewalk outside Roosevelt hotel in NYC on 8/1/2023 as they wait to apply for free temporary housing and work permits. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

USA TODAY report gens sympathy for ‘migrants’ – but the ongoing outrage couldn’t have begun w/o the upfront, active support of Democrats at every level of govt – not allowing, but MAKING it happen – despite ZERO citizen-taxpayer input.

By Chris McKenna | New York State Team/ USA Today

They spent nearly eight months there, enduring bed bugs, screams from other rooms at all hours and food too spicy for the children to eat. The father washed cars for 12 hours a day for just $50 each day — they used the money to buy the kids more suitable food.

The couple and their two little kids had fled Colombia for their safety and wound up in a hotel in Times Square, now serving as a crowded migrant shelter with less-than-ideal conditions.

Then, a breakthrough.

Through a state-funded program for asylum seekers, they and the relatives who came to the U.S. with them moved from New York City to a Westchester County apartment last September. The space was tight, with nine people sharing four bedrooms and one bathroom. But it gave them a welcome dose of independence and semblance of normal life after their long shelter limbo.

“It was such a blessing to get here,” the 37-year mother told the USA TODAY Network in Spanish, speaking through an interpreter. She asked that her name be withheld and declined to be photographed for fear of retaliation by the guerrillas who menaced her family in Colombia.

“It was not easy,” she said. “We can’t go back to Colombia.”

Her family is one of more than 430 placed in apartments across New York — from Long Island to Buffalo — since last year, with hundreds more waiting to move. All are seeking asylum in the U.S. and accepted offers to relocate from New York City’s shelters to one of five counties outside the city, with the state paying their rent for one year.

But the process moves at a sluggish pace, partly due to the scarcity of affordable apartments and the painstaking work of matching families with homes and securing leases with landlords.

The state budgeted $25 million in spring of 2023 for the Migrant Relocation Assistance Program, a new strategy to help the city cope with its swelling migrant population. It was meant to ease strain on city shelters and guide migrant families to self-sufficiency, putting them in homes so they can find jobs and stable lives while their asylum cases are pending.

State officials hoped to place 1,250 families, but progress has been slow. As of early August, just 437 had moved into apartments in the five counties chosen for the strictly voluntary program: Westchester, Monroe, Albany, Erie and Suffolk. It had taken 11 months to complete those moves, which began in early September 2023.

Many more were in the pipeline: 821 eligible families were awaiting placements as of early August, including 18 that had signed leases and were set to move, according to the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the agency overseeing the program.

Finding homes for all of them will likely take many months. Since starting the program last year, the state has reached a steady pace of about 50 placements per month. At that rate it would take around 15 months — until nearly the end of 2025 — to reach its goal of moving 1,250 families.

Asylum seeker housing is expensive and far from NYC

The program lets families choose where to move, and 81 had settled in Westchester by early August — the nearest place by far to New York City of the five counties.

But Westchester’s rents are among the highest — $2,950 on average for a two-bedroom — and daunting for families to take on when the state’s payments end.

So more have crossed the state to settle in Rochester, where costs are much lower (rent for a two-bedroom in Monroe County averages $1,772, according to the state’s promotional materials for migrant families).

As of early August, 113 had apartments in Rochester, six hours from Times Square.

They were placed in those homes by Ibero-American Action League, one of four nonprofits contracted by the state to secure apartments and provide support services for families in the relocation program. It’s handling the placements for both Monroe and Albany counties and had gotten 115 families into apartments in the city of Albany by early August.

“We feel like we have been successful,” Angelica Perez-Delgado, president and CEO of Ibero-American, said in an interview.

Her organization pays the rent and utility bills, provides food until families can afford their own, and works with the state Department of Labor to help them find jobs. It also refers families to health care providers and helps enroll children in schools.