New York City quietly launched a pilot program in December 2023 that pays illegal aliens to leave its shelters.
Through the program, called Asylee Moveout Assistance (AMA), the NYC Department of Homeless Services is offering 150 families $4,000 per household to find permanent housing. The Department of Homeless Services has been dispensing the cash assistance since December to eligible households who live in the city’s emergency shelters.
According to NYC’s local Fox affiliate, eligibility for the program is limited to asylum-seeking families and pregnant women who are residing in select city-run emergency shelters and have already identified permanent housing. And although while these aliens are called “asylum-seekers,” it is not clear whether the families are actually required to file asylum applications to receive funds. The $4,000 may be used for security deposits, moving expenses, first and last month rent, and household necessities. Migrant families must document their expenses. Families can also receive up to $1,000 in gift cards for household necessities and moving expenses.
In a statement to Fox News, a Department of Shelter Services said, “Since December, [the Department of Social Services] has been working with a few not-for-profit providers operating emergency sites to pilot a new effort to reduce barriers to obtaining housing by helping asylum-seeking families who have identified permanent housing with the upfront cost of moving into their new home.”
The spokesperson then added that there is no city funding allocated for this program; rather the Department of Homeless Services is using money from existing funds within the agency. “This is a very small pilot only available to asylum-seeking families in select emergency shelters operated by [the Department of Homeless Services],” she said. “This is not a citywide effort and not available to migrant families residing across the shelter system.”
Over 210,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since 2022. Since the mass influx, the City has scrambled to find shelter for the migrants in over 200 hotels, tent dormitories and office buildings. The migrant crisis has pushed the city’s homeless shelter system to the brink of collapse, in part due to the City’s right-to shelter policy, which requires the City to provide housing to all migrants—even if they are in the U.S. illegally. New York City’s shelter system is now housing about 64,000 migrants. Mayor Eric Adams says the crisis has cost New York City at last $10 billion over three years. According to an updated estimate by the Department of Homeless Services, it now costs $388 per night to house a migrant household.
