Dear New Yorkers, 

New York City benefits from each wave of new immigrants who, generation-after-generation, consistently bring new ideas, businesses, culture, and an abiding faith in the future of our city. 

And since the Spring of 2022, New York City has welcomed tens of thousands of new immigrants — a huge new influx of people seeking asylum in the United States to escape extreme violence, deprivation, and climate disasters. 

The City has entered hundreds of “emergency contracts” to provide shelter and services to these new arrivals, fulfilling our obligation under the State Constitution to shelter those in need. The city agencies use an expedited process to quickly hire vendors to provide services like shelter, meals, medical care, and legal assistance to people. 

Emergency contracts are critical to respond in emergencies, but also opens the City to greater risk of waste and fraud. That’s why my office keeps a close eye on emergency contracting and spending to ensure that city resources are being spent properly and prudently to serve all New York City residents – whether they’ve been here for decades or just arrived yesterday. 

It’s a lot of information, and lot of data to keep track of. That’s why I just launched a new online resource: The most comprehensive publicly available data on asylum seeker services, all in one place. This is the public’s one stop to access key information on emergency contracting, budgeting, and the status of individuals in our shelter system.

It’s my hope that this new online resource provides transparency into the City’s contracting and budgeting for asylum seeker services. We’ll keep this database updated as information becomes available.  

New York City stands to benefit greatly from this newest wave of New Yorkers, if we can effectively manage the challenge of helping them find stable housing, get permission to work, and begin building their new lives here. But that is no small challenge.  

We need much more support from the federal and state governments, and an even broader coalition of public, private, and civic partners. This week, I was encouraged to see Governor Kathy Hochul commit $20 million toward much-needed legal services for asylum seekers that will help them get on a path to work authorization. 

Will you take a moment to view our new Asylum Seeker Services resource? And if you have time, feel free to reply to this email and let me know what you think. All New York City residents deserve a city government that is delivering services effectively and spending wisely. 

Thanks, 

Brad