More than 60 percent of migrants who have arrived in New York City since the spring of last year remain in taxpayer-funded shelters across the city’s five boroughs. Mass immigration has also only exacerbated the city’s sky-high rents that are often out of reach for working and lower-middle-class New Yorkers.
Data published in the Wall Street Journal this week reveals that of the more than 90,000 migrants who have arrived in New York City since April 2022, almost 61 percent are still living off taxpayers in shelters.
Mayor Eric Adams (D) said migrants will likely cost New York City taxpayers close to $3 billion this fiscal year alone after they have already spent some $1.4 billion to house, feed, and care for the new arrivals.
The issue has become so widespread that migrants now outnumber native New Yorkers in the city’s shelter system, with the city housing about 55,000 migrants compared to roughly 50,000 New Yorkers.
Meanwhile, mass immigration to New York City has only helped send rents skyrocketing for native New Yorkers and those moving to the city.
The median rent today in the city is about $3,700 a month, according to data compiled by Zillow. This represents a $200 increase compared to the same time last year. The city has the most inventory of rental properties, starting at $5,000 a month and going all the way to $150,000 a month.
Chart via Zillow
Last month, rents in New York City hit a new high, with the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment across the five boroughs costing a pricey $3,900 a month — a nearly nine percent increase compared to the same period the year before.
The addition of tens of thousands of newly arrived border crossers and illegal aliens, on top of those thousands of legal immigrants who arrive monthly, coincides with New York City’s increasing unaffordability for working and lower-middle-class New Yorkers.
A 2017 study published in the Journal of Housing Economics found that “increases in immigration into a metropolitan statistical area are linked with rising rents and home prices in that metropolitan statistical area and neighboring metropolitan statistical areas.”
RELATED — J.D. Vance: Illegal Immigration Robs Americans of Dream of Owning a Home
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban AffairsMass immigration’s impact on boosting housing costs for Americans is so pronounced that New York Magazine recently admitted that it is “bad for housing prices.”
In 2013, a study by the Michael Bloomberg-funded New American Economy, which promotes mass immigration, explained how the importing of tens of millions of immigrants over decades had helped raise housing costs by $3.7 trillion for the next generation of homebuyers but spun the figure as the creation of “housing wealth.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
