Elected officials protest latest NYC plan to move migrants into Staten Island church on Tuesday

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Elected officials and community leaders gathered in Port Richmond Monday to speak out against the city’s latest plan to shelter migrants in a house of worship.

Borough President Vito Fossella, Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks (D-North Shore), Councilman David Carr (R-Mid-Island), and James Smith, of the Port Richmond North Shore Alliance civic group, led the press conference against the planned shelter for 15 men at Faith United Methodist Church at the corner of Heberton and Castleton avenues starting Tuesday.

Hanks said her office first became aware of the city’s plan Saturday through a text message from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.

She said the shelter would be run by New York Disaster Interfaith Services with one shower among the 15 men, who would have access to facility from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“We stand here today as elected officials on behalf of our constituency to vehemently oppose the opening of this migrant shelter,” she said. “Residents of this district are tired. They’re tired of constantly waking up one day to find an institution they trusted has made the decision that they feel will have a negative impact on their community and their safety.”

Adams announced in early June last year that the city would be using houses of worship to shelter migrant arrivals in the city. That included two houses of worship on Staten Island, a claim some local elected officials disputed.

Hanks said at the end of Monday’s press conference outside Faith United Methodist Church that a total of six houses of worship had been identified for shelters on Staten Island, but couldn’t specify which ones.

Fossella, who has been one of the Island’s most vocal opponents of migrant shelters, pointed to community revitalization efforts in recent years on the part of the Port Richmond North Shore Alliance and others in the community.

“We’re here in this area of Staten Island that has come so far in a short period of time and is a great, robust community,” he said. “People work hard, invest in local storefronts, invest in local restaurants, invest in their own homes...and yet, out of the blue, the dark of night, we were told last week, ‘guess what, despite your best efforts, we’re going to open a migrant shelter.’”

Neither the mayor’s office nor the church responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.

Carr said that after pushing back against shelters in his own district he thought it was important to support Hanks and residents of the North Shore.

“I’m not just against migrant shelters in my backyard. I’m against migrant shelters in every one,” he said. “We should be talking about closing shelters, not opening up new ones like the one they intend to put behind us. These churches are thoroughly unsuitable for these kinds of facilities.”

A network of churches across Staten Island has long been used to nightly house members of the traditional homeless population for decades.

When announcing the migrant program last year, Adams’ administration styled it as an improvement of that traditional service with congregations able to provide more to the people being housed in their buildings.

Representatives from the offices of Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn), State Sen. Andrew Lanza (R-South Shore), State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (D-North Shore/South Brooklyn), Assemblyman Michael Reilly (R-South Shore), Assemblyman Michael Tannousis (R-East Shore/South Brooklyn), Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo (R-Mid-Island) and Councilman Joseph Borelli (R-South Shore) also joined the press conference.

“We will always fight against the policies that are continuing to diminish our quality of life,” Tannousis said. “But our community needs to make their voices heard by contacting the elected officials that are pushing these policies forward.”

Local elected officials opposed to migrant shelters on Staten Island have had some success pushing back against the city’s sites for migrant housing, including one placed in Arrochar at the former St. John Villa Academy and in Rosebank at Canterbury House, a senior residence operated by and on the grounds of St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Part of the pushback to that latter shelter included Malliotakis challenging the shelter based on what she described as a violation of the Canterbury House’s certificate of occupancy, a strategy District Director Sherry Diamond said could be repeated in Port Richmond.