Posted on March 4, 2024 by G. Worth Last week, a damning piece in The New York Times exposed the inexplicably poor results of Governor Hochul’s Migrant Resettlement Assistance Program (MRAP) which, after eight months, has managed to resettle only a tiny fraction of the families it was supposed to resettle throughout the state: “Of the 1,250 migrant families the program was designed to help, only about 170 households have moved so far. By contrast, the State of Illinois, which launched a comparable program in December 2022, says it has moved 4,697 households into apartments — 27 times as many as New York.” And yes, the program has encountered resistance in many parts of the state, which is operating in only five counties out of 62. Local opposition, executive orders barring migrant resettlement, and difficulty in finding landlords to participate in the program have all contributed to the program’s slow progress. However, these are all surmountable obstacles. “It’s inconceivable that, with so much at stake, Governor Hochul and her administration are unable to make this program function properly, and have been able to relocate only 174 families since last July. The only possible explanation is that they don’t really care about it. If they wanted MRAP to work, they could make it work,” said Dave Giffen, the Coalition’s Executive Director. Dana Rubinstein, Andy Newman, and Wesley Parnell explain in the article: “As extravagant as it may sound to offer families a year of free rent in a decent apartment, the program has the potential to save the government money.” In fact, if the State were to double the length of guaranteed rent to two years, it would still cost a fraction of what it costs to shelter a family in an emergency facility like the one at Floyd Bennett Field: “New York City is currently paying an average of nearly $400 per night to shelter each migrant household. So keeping 1,250 families in shelters for a year costs at least $180 million. The $25 million budget for the resettlement program works out to about $55 per night for each family.” The State’s failure to make MRAP work has left thousands of people stranded in shelters, contributing to New York City’s severe shelter capacity crisis for new arrivals and costing millions of dollars that would be more efficiently spent helping families transition into permanent housing. The only real solution to this crisis is creating a functioning statewide system to help new arrivals exit shelters into permanent housing so they can find jobs and stability as the newest members of our community. Governor Hochul has talked the talk, but it’s time for her to walk the walk and make MRAP work. Read the whole article here.
