New details on the cost of an emergency shelter on Randall's Island raises questions about the feasibility of housing asylum seekers on a docked cruise ship that could cost the city millions and have unintended environmental consequences.
The proposal to house asylum seekers on a cruise ship parked on the Staten Island waterfront emerged weeks ago and remains an option, Mayor Eric Adams’ office said.
Details about how the cruise ship plan would work were not available. Politicians and other local officials said most of the information they’re getting about shelter plans for asylum seekers is through the press. But a review of previous use of cruise ships in an emergency, as well as past controversies surrounding the vessels in New York City, shows they’re very expensive to operate and bad for the environment.
Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said city officials told him a deal with a cruise line was not imminent – but that it was under consideration because it could be more affordable than erecting tent shelters.
“For lack of a better phrase, it was cheaper to get the cruise ship than to build these tents,” said Fossella, who opposes the proposal. “I have no knowledge of the numbers or any of that, other than that's why it was being considered.”
But it’s unclear how cruise ships could be more affordable than tent structures or housing homeless asylum seekers in hotels.
In Mississippi, FEMA temporarily housed people displaced by Hurricane Katrina in trailers on private property that cost $30,000 each on average, according to a 2007 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Federal officials also signed a controversial six-month contract with Carnival Cruise Lines to temporarily house more than 8,000 people on ships docked in New Orleans. The agency paid Carnival $236 million.
On Tuesday, Zach Iscol, the city's emergency management commissioner, confirmed the city spent roughly $650,000 to dismantle tents for asylum seekers at flood-prone Orchard Beach and reassemble them on Randall’s Island.
Press gathered outside a new emergency facility for asylum seekers on Randall's Island.
“The mayor has been clear that he is considering a multitude of options to tackle this crisis. If a cruise ship is chosen to place asylum seekers at temporarily, we will make that public,” a City Hall spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Norwegian Cruise Line confirmed the mayor approached the company about renting a cruise ship, but “no agreement has been reached.” Negotiations reportedly centered on leasing one of the company’s ships for at least six months and docking it at Stapleton’s Homeport Pier, near a waterfront park on Staten Island's North Shore.
Asylum seekers would be temporarily housed there before being placed in the city’s shelter system.
According to The New York Post, the city is now in talks with other cruise line companies, including Carnival, which the company denies.
“Carnival Cruise Line is not in any discussions about our ships being used for charters, including in New York,” a company spokesperson told Gothamist.
Utilizing a docked cruise ship also raises environmental concerns. The vessels at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, for instance, have long been the subject of complaints from Red Hook residents.
A single cruise ship idling at the port emits as much diesel exhaust as 34,400 idling tractor trailers. The cruise ships off the Brooklyn waterfront produce 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide, 25 tons of nitrous oxide, and tons of hazardous particulate matter each year, according to a 2019 New York Times report.
Adam Armstrong, who said he recently moved out of Red Hook due to the cruise ships’ pollution, said neighborhoods around the terminal bear the brunt of the industry.
“It’s all abutting really dense residential populations,” Armstrong said. “You’ve got the largest NYCHA complex in Brooklyn right there with communities that are already pretty impacted by all sorts of factors, not only environmental, but socioeconomic, and, you know, it's kind of crazy.”
The majority of ships docked at cruise ship terminals in Brooklyn and Manhattan run on diesel fuel that’s been linked to asthma, cancer, and other serious health conditions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Cruise ships in Red Hook rarely use a more environmentally friendly “plug-in station” connected to the electrical grid, Con Edison confirmed. Such a station is not available in Staten Island.
Carolina Salguero, founder and executive director of the nonprofit PortSide New York, emphasized that a cruise ship docked long term in New York City waters was much different from one loading and unloading passengers. She wondered about sewage disposal and asylum seekers’ access to clean water on the cruise ship.
Councilmember Alexa Avilés, who represents Red Hook, opposed any plan to put migrants on cruise ships.
“We are approaching winter. Could you just imagine yourself being given an option of staying on a cruise ship in the middle of winter in New York Harbor?” Avilés said. “It just doesn't even make any sense. How do people get on and off? Just the whole thing is absurd.”
