‘We can't sustain this’: Staten Island borough president on NYC's migrant crisis

Crowds gathered on Staten Island earlier this week to protest the city's decision to use a shuttered Catholic school to house hundreds of migrants. It's the latest migrant shelter location in the five boroughs to elicit protests from local residents.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella attended the protest on Monday. He's been an outspoken critic of the city's policy of housing the thousands of people arriving each month.

He spoke with WNYC’s Sean Carlson on "All Things Considered" on Wednesday to share his perspective on the issue.

An interview transcript is available below. It was lightly edited for clarity.

Borough President Fossella, thanks for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Great to be with you. I appreciate you having me on.

So there have been a bunch of protests across the city against some of these shelters, whether it's a school gym on Coney Island or a psychiatric center in Queens. Why are Staten Island residents and electeds so opposed to this shelter?

So, if I may, I just want to go back and turn the clock back to about this time last year. When folks started arriving in New York City and New York City said, “Come on in. We're a right-to-shelter city and we'll put you up and we'll feed you.” And I think that’s noble. But it's wrong policy because, what we said last year, it was going to be unsustainable. And how can we expect to put 50,000, 100,000, half-a-million people up in hotels for an indefinite period of time and feed them?

And we said it then, and we repeat it today, because not only was it going to just be sort of places [where] there's no concern or no opposition, but as people just kept on coming and coming, and they continue to arrive in the city, they're going to start looking elsewhere.

And that's what the city is saying. We're desperate for locations, so they end up in a place called Arrochar, which is a beautiful residential community in what was an old Catholic school now owned by the city of New York, and it's across the street from an all-girls Catholic high school. When I say across the street, I don't mean a city block. I mean about 50 feet away.

And then an elementary school, that's St. Joseph Hill Academy. Then a block away is PS 39, which is an elementary school, which by the way is my alma mater. I used to walk those streets every day when I was a kid. And it's just not right. And we're trying to be the voice of the people to say, “Please pick another location.”

So as you said, folks are coming here by the thousands. Do you think the city has any role whatsoever in providing some sort of housing and relief to folks who are coming here? And if we don't use these big underutilized sites, what are we supposed to do?

If you are coming to this country, chances are you're not in good shape financially to begin with, and you're fleeing your home country, wherever it may be. Why wouldn't you come here? Why wouldn't you want to come to New York City and be accommodated for free? What we have said is the right-to-shelter consent decree has been morphed and misapplied and misrepresented of what its original intent was.

In my opinion, and I don't think I'm alone, it was never intended to say if you come to New York City from any place around the world and demand free accommodations, you will get it. And I think people should sort of sit around and say, “Okay. We recognize there's a problem here. Let's figure it out.”

There's a lot of finger pointing that's taking place right now, and that's not going to solve the problem. The problem is going to say, “We can't sustain this.” Which is what we said last year. Less than a year ago, we asked the Independent Budget Office to predict or project how much it would cost to accommodate the migrants at that point in time.

And it was about a half-a-billion dollars. So it's grown from a half-a-billion to $12 billion in less than a year, and it continues to grow.

You've called on Gov. Kathy Hochal to call a special legislative session to deal with this. What do you think that state lawmakers can do here in dealing with the crisis?

I just think that, again, to address this whole right-to-shelter consent decree. People think it's a law. It's not a law. They say it's in the New York State Constitution. We don't believe it says anything like that in the New York State Constitution.

So this is a growing city-state problem, and we would hope that maybe the state Legislature would convene and clarify and put to bed – what it was truly intended to do.

We're not saying “no” to anybody. I just don't think we can afford it. Now we've asked for things on Staten Island, whether it be parks or a school. About a year-and-a-half ago, we said we should have a school for the performing arts on Staten Island. It's the only borough without one. To date, we have not received an answer, in part, because we're told we may not have the money.

We have the Staten Island Expressway. Granted it's a state issue, but money is fungible and there's an HOV lane on the expressway. It goes about seven-eighths of the way on the island, and it merges. We would like to see that extended. And we were told a couple of months ago, we don't have any money now.

Things that we'd like to do, and we understand when there's no money. It's not a bottomless pit. But how is it that we don't have a few bucks to take care of things that can help Staten Island residents and taxpayers? But yet we turn around and we find $12 billion to accommodate folks who were here [for] a week.

So we would like the state to just convene a special session to address the right-to-shelter and anything else that can alleviate the burden that is currently being imposed, not just on Staten Island, but also throughout, as I see it, the rest of New York.

Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis went so far as to say that Staten Island should consider seceding from New York City. Of course, it's been a pretty long-simmering debate regardless of this issue. Is this something you'd support?

I've been a proponent of secession and, you know, personally, I supported it 30 years ago. One of the reasons is I believe strongly that a community should be represented and decisions should be made on behalf of the governed. The consent of the governed, right? People come together, they compromise. They want a new school, they want a new road, they want a new park. And then the political representatives decide how to best do what the people want, consistent with one's principles and consistent with one's judgment as to what the best thing to do is.

And what's happening is the people of Staten Island are getting things that they do not want. That the political representatives are saying, “We don't want it.”

And by the way, the Villa site was opposed by Democrats too. It's not just a Republican issue. Democratic representatives oppose the [location] too. So the people don't want it, the political representatives don't want it. The local associations and community boards don't want it, and yet we get it.

After a while, you sort of say, “Well, if we don't want this stuff and we're getting it anyway, why should we be part of New York City?” That is exactly what's happening. And [I] would be open to [having] that discussion. I wouldn't just say. we're going to do it tomorrow. We'd have to figure out the costs and benefits or the pros and the cons.

It's common sense. You know, “I don't matter anymore. You know, nobody hears us anymore. We don't want this anymore, or we want A and B and not C and D,” you get to a point of enough is enough. So I think that's why that conversation is occurring.