Arrests are skyrocketing at homeless and migrant shelters across New York City, with a 100 percent surge so far this year — terrifying neighbors who are increasingly ravaged by crime in their communities.
Between Jan. 1 and March 31, cops made 836 arrests at shelters citywide — the most for any quarter since at least 2018 — including 272 felony busts and 573 for misdemeanors, according to NYPD data. In the same period in 2023, there were just 418 arrests at shelters, comprising 160 felonies and 258 misdemeanors.
The 25th Precinct, which covers East Harlem as well as Randall’s Island — home to the city’s gargantuan, 3,000-bed tented migrant shelter — saw a jaw-dropping 295 percent jump in arrests with 83 during this period, compared to only 21 during the same time in 2023.
The Randall’s Island shelter has been a incubator of brutal and random violence, residents told The Post.
“It’s a total s–t show over there and the city doesn’t have a plan,” said financier John, 67, who walks to the island every morning from his home on the Upper East Side.
A few months back, a migrant riding on an e-bike sucker punched the finance worker in the back of the head as he crossed the footbridge onto crime-ridden island. The other day, he added, a friend and his wife were walking in front of the tent city when a brute on a bike slapped the woman out of the blue, he said
“There’s a lot of crime that happens,” he continued. “A cop here told me once that they had sexual assaults and all this s–t here that doesn’t even get reported.”
In January, a migrant was stabbed to death at the tent city in a dispute over a woman. The next month, a wild melee melee broke out between the shelters’ rowdy residents and cops, while two migrants were arrested for assaulting a security guard just days later.
Meanwhile, major crimes in the precinct are up nearly 14% so far this year, according to police data. Murders have jumped 50%, from 4 to 6; felony assaults have increased roughly 25%, from 204 to 254; and grand larceny is up almost 15%, from 235 to 270.
“That s–t is bad,” East Harlem resident Malcom Warner, 28, said of the chaos spilling out into neighborhoods’ streets from over the bridge. “It’s gotten to the point that the old people can’t sit outside and enjoy themselves. They’re worried about being attacked.”
In Long Island City — which is packed with a city-topping 23 migrant shelters, The Post revealed in a front-page report last week — the 108th and 114th Precincts saw shelter arrests increase 100%, from 9 to 18; and 64%, from 11 to 18, respectively, during this year’s first quarter.
“It’s affected the staff, including us, which is something we just have to deal and live with,” said Doug Gleiber, 51, who runs a wooden box-making company in the neighborhood with his father.
One of his workers almost quit after she said she was harassed by migrants, who were furious she accidentally tapped one of their mopeds with her car, Gleiber recalled.
“The guys were out there and they were screaming at her…They got angry and kicked her car,” he said. “She has been here for 10-plus years, and she felt so much anxiety that she would have to go out here and be amongst this.”
Some 207,000 migrants in total have been in the city’s care since spring 2022, costing taxpayers $4.88 billion as of May, according to the Office of Management and Budget. An average of roughly 65,000 migrants have been in the city’s care in recent months, bringing the overall homeless shelter population to 119,300 as of March 31, compared to 82,200 people in total a year prior, officials said.
“Crime at shelters is skyrocketing due to disastrous decarceral policies that flood our streets with criminals, the warehouse-style shelter system, and the constant flow of violent migrant gang members crossing our border,” Councilman Bob Holden (D-Queens) seethed.
“This lunacy is transforming neighborhoods into crime-ridden zones, and New Yorkers are paying the price with their safety and taxpayer dollars.”
William Fowler, a mayoral spokesman, said the uptick in shelter arrests is unsurprising given the influx of migrants into the city’s shelter population, but insisted the facilities were among the safer options for homeless.
“Increases in arrests at our shelter sites are expected to rise with increasing numbers of people. But our shelters still remain a much safer alternative to sleeping on our streets or in the subway system,” he said.
He clarified that the NYPD shelter arrest data may also include busts that happen on the street at or near a shelter, or those involving a person who was arrested at one of the housing facilities for a crime that did not occur there.
Asked about neighbors’ ongoing concerns that migrants staying in the city-run shelters were a source of soaring crime in their communities, Fowler referred to Mayor Adams’ recent statement boasting that overall crime has decreased across the five boroughs over the past six months.
Crime also festers at non-migrant shelters, such as the VIP Community men’s shelter that opened in March on East 123rd Street.
“When they first opened that up, cops were coming every day,” said Ty Johnson, 34, an overnight maintenance worker at the shelter.
“You can’t put these guys in areas that are drug-infested already, it’s not gonna work,” Johnson said. “If these shelters in certain areas, back blocks, the crime would be lower because they’d be away from people.”
Last month, a shelter resident referred there by the city Department of Homeless Services managed to sneak a razor blade into the facility and slashed five men, all of whom had to be hospitalized, according to police.
Residents recalled the bloody attack as a clear example of the dangers they face inside the tinderbox housing set-ups, many of which provide beds for drug addicts and mentally ill individuals.
“When you’re sleeping, you’ve got one eye closed, one eye open, because you never know what’s going to happen,” Francisco Albino, 55, who shares a room with 10 other men and relies on his 6-year-old Yorkie, Tommy, for protection.
“They don’t control the people. They put together people with mental issues, the crazy people.”
