about 20 veterans homeless have been driven out of the hotels in northern New York to make room for immigrants, according to a complaint by a non-profit group that works for the rights of this group and which is echoed by the New York Post.
According to sources cited by the New York outlet, the hotels informed the ex-servicemen, including a 24-year-old man who “desperately” needed help after serving in Afghanistan, that their accommodation would be removed and they would have to move elsewhere.
“Our veterans have been placed in another hotel, due to what is happening with immigrants”said Sharon Toney-Finch, executive director of the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation, quoted by The Post.
Toney-Finch, a disabled military veteran, created the foundation to raise awareness about premature birth and to help veterans homeless and low-income military service members who need assistance in living.
According to Toney-Finch, 15 of the veterans They had received help at the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City in Orange County, to where Mayor Eric Adams has begun to send migrants, due to the crisis that the Big Apple presentswhich since last spring has received about 60 thousand migrantsmost shipped from Texas by Governor Greg Abbott.
the other five veterans The displaced were split between the Super 8 and the Hampton Inn & Suites in Middletown, Toney-Finch said.
The outlet points out that the Middletown hotels, although it is unknown if they already house migrants, they were on the mayor’s list to send some.
The CEO of the foundation warned that the hotels did not explicitly tell the veterans that they had to leave for the migrantsbut that for her “it was clear” that this was the case, given the moment the city is living.
The 20 displaced veterans ended up at a Hudson Valley hotel about 20 minutes away.said the ex-serviceman, who asked The Post to make reservations about the name of the place.
According to what was reported to the media, the veterans they would stay at the three hotels for up to four weeks, while permanent housing was found for them.
According to Toney-Finch, the veterans They were about two weeks old when they were driven out of the hotels. “Now we have to work from scratch. We just lost that trust [con los veteranos]”said.
“Many of them are veterans from Viet Nam. We constantly help them to get benefits and help them find a place in society,” she expressed.
Opposition criticism
Brian Maher, the state Assemblyman for the Republican Party who helps the representative of the veteranssaid that it is important to publicize the situation “Because we need to make sure these hotels know how important it is to respect our veteran’s service before they [los] throw them out of hotels to make room”.
“They really should think about the impact on these people who are already going through a traumatic time,” the assemblyman told The Post.
“Whether you agree with asylum seekers being here or not, we can’t just ignore these veterans who are in our charge and are supposed to be protecting: New Yorkers and Americans.”said the Republican. “We have to put them first,” he stressed.
For the representative of the group, the whole situation “comes down to money.”
“They want to get paid” more, he said of the hotels, alluding to the amount of money his group receives to get lodging for the veterans versus what the city pays for each migrant.
“That’s very unfair, because at the end of the day, we’re a small nonprofit and we pay $88 a day for a veteran to be there.”said.
It’s unclear how much New York pays for each migrant upstate, but various deals between the Big Apple and Manhattan hotels have required payments of $190 per nightpart of an estimated price for migrants $4.3 billion for taxpayers through spring 2024.
The transfer of migrants into town at The Crossroads on Thursday, hours before the expiration of the Title 42the sanitary norm that allowed the express expulsion of migrants and for which purpose US authorities had warned of an increase in the flow of undocumented immigrants.
The move sparked a fierce war of words between Adams and officials in Orange and neighboring Rockland County, where the mayor also threatened to bus immigrants, until a lawsuit temporarily blocked the move.
2023-05-14 21:25:56
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