Emergency migrant housing built on state land and run with state money is opening as scrutiny intensifies into how Gov. Kathy Hochul is helping. Massive white tents pitched in the parking lot of Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens stood as a symbol of the state’s contribution. Playbook toured the complex ahead of its opening later Tuesday, viewing the long rows of dining tables, sleeping cots and portable bathrooms intended to serve more than 1,000 single men. “We’ve exhausted everything that we can, in terms of converting former office buildings, opening up as many hotels as we can,” said Ted Long, a senior executive with NYC Health + Hospitals who led the walkthrough. “But today, we stand in a parking lot and Randall’s, which we’ve also announced, is going to be on a soccer field.” There have been nods to what Albany has given in aid to New York City: $1 billion in allocated funding and some state-owned sites. The state will also reimburse the city for the large-scale housing facility on Randall’s Island. Gov. Hochul has voiced her commitment even as she argues the right-to-shelter mandate should not apply statewide. “I have brought enormous resources to the table, and we’re not done yet,” Hochul said last week. But calls are growing louder for the state to step up, including on a Zoom forum Tuesday with more than two dozen housing advocates organized by Da Homeless Hero and at a downtown Brooklyn rally where attendees ran the political gamut from members of the Democratic Socialists of America to Mayor Eric Adams to Republican Assemblymember Lester Chang. “They do have work to do. They do need to do more,” Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, floated as a potential challenger to Adams’ left, said of the state. The bulk of the pressure campaign at the rally, however, remained focused on President Joe Biden and the lack of federal aid. Separately, David Giffen, executive director of Coalition for the Homeless, told Playbook he and his allies sent a letter with 100 signatures urging Hochul to have other towns take on migrants — a fight that is already playing out across the Hudson Valley and upstate. “This requires a level of moral courage and leadership that we have yet to see from the governor,” he said. The charge came on a day when the state was required to respond to the city’s requests for state resources for migrants, creating a pitched battle in the courts and in communities across New York. HAPPY WEDNESDAY. Got news? Send it our way: Jeff Coltin, Emily Ngo and Nick Reisman. WHERE’S KATHY? In New York City and Albany with no immediate schedule. WHERE’S ERIC? Holding a public hearing for Intro. 31-C at City Hall, delivering remarks at flag-raising ceremony for Pakistan at Bowling Green Park, signing Intro. 31-C and making an announcement about the future of outdoor dining in the Bronx, delivering remarks at the Ezra Medical Center’s new facility, and at the NYC Black Pride “Health As a Human Right” Conference in Manhattan. QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m Gandhi-like. I think like Gandhi. I act like Gandhi. I want to be like Gandhi.” — Adams, said as part of an extended riff about the assassinated leader Tuesday at an Indian flag raising.
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