Community garden volunteers seek help to support of unhoused migrants
The group of neighbors have been supporting asylum seekers in and outside of the shelter with donated food, clothing, raising money for a port-a-potty and even have organized English classes.
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Volunteers with a community garden are continuing to support migrant men left sleeping on the street near a now-shuttered migrant shelter in Bed-Stuy.
On Wednesday, volunteers with the Bushwick City Farm passed out food and toiletries to asylum seekers.
The group of neighbors have been supporting asylum seekers in and outside of the shelter with donated food, clothing, raising money for a port-a-potty and even have organized English classes.
This donation drive comes just over a week after a migrant shelter located across the street from the garden on Stockton Street closed its doors.
City officials said migrants who qualified were reassigned to other shelters in the city, but many migrants remain living near the garden with nowhere else to go.
Many of the men have been phased out of the cities care because of a 30-day limit for migrant men.
Volunteers are calling on the city to do more to help their new neighbors.
"The government needs to do a better job at providing them case management so they can get there asylum paperwork and their work permits," said Mariel Acosta, volunteer with Bushwick City Farm.
Earlier this week city officials spoke to concerns about migrant encampments across the five boroughs, one official pointed to one of their solutions.
"We have a sort of ongoing opportunity for anyone who wants to move to another step in their journey for them to be re-ticketed and that option remains open to them," Camille Joseph Varlack, the mayor's chief of staff.
Varlack added more than 65% of the 212,000 asylum seekers who have entered the cities care have been given city funded bus tickets to leave.
