Officials with Mayor Eric Adams’ administration didn’t deny a report Wednesday that it is considering setting up a migrant tent shelter in Central Park—and other large parks—as the lack of space in existing city shelters has left newcomers sleeping on the streets.
The plan — originally reported by the news website Gothamist on Aug. 2 — would see tent shelters erected in major city parks including Prospect Park in Brooklyn and on Randall’s Island, in addition to Central Park. It follows several days where hundreds of asylum seekers, mainly men, have been sleeping on the streets and in buses outside of the city’s migrant welcome center at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown, due to the facility reaching capacity.