Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy, Communications: Hi, good morning. My name is Fabien Levy, and I serve as deputy mayor for Communications for the City of New York. Thank you for joining us again. The mayor has once again convened to deliver vital information to New Yorkers whether it's managing the asylum seekers crisis, preventing gun violence building an economy that supports working families, our initiatives bring together leaders across city government and these media availabilities do the same.

 

By bringing our team together we can provide a clearer picture into the work we do and deliver more accurate and accessible information for all New Yorkers. Joining us this morning we have Mayor Eric Adams, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, Chief Advisor to the Mayor Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Chief of Staff Camille Joseph Varlack, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development and Workforce Maria Torres-Springer, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Ana Almanzar. Without any further delay, I'll turn it over to Mayor Eric Adams.

 

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much, Fabien. Thanks to the entire team for being here. Your days are full. Before we open up to questions I want to give you an overview. We have now more than 126,000 migrants, close to 127,000 that have come through our care since last spring. We have more than 118,000 total people in our care and out of that number, 64,000, a little over 64,000 are migrants.

 

In recent weeks, we've seen migrants arriving more and more quickly. Instead of the 2,400 people in a week that we had previously, we're now getting nearly 4,000 a week. So every day the team is just really pulling off miracles, housing, making sure that we do and provide the basic services so we don't have long lines.

 

And my number one agenda has been to ensure we don't have children and families sleeping on the streets of the city like we're seeing in cities across America. These Mayors, my colleagues across America, are doing the best they can, but it's clear that all of these cities are overwhelmed.

 

Since the humanitarian crisis began 18 months ago, not one family and child has slept on the street. Not one. Not one. I want to be very clear on that.

 

We are seeing that the 60 day notices with intensive case work support, they're working. Many people are deciding to find their own independent living arrangement or they're staying with family members or moving to other locales where they can stabilize their lives.

 

We're going to continue to use this successful model to help those transition out of the shelter system. And we have been clear from the beginning, we will continue to state    I think you're now hearing voices across the entire country    Massachusetts and others, Chicago, we need help from the federal government. This is overwhelming our cities. And no city should be going through this. It's unfair to taxpayers and it's unfair to the migrant and asylum seekers to be living in these conditions.

 

Early this week, the state of Massachusetts announced that they have 7,000 families in their care and they're nearly at their capacity. What I saw on the press announcement, they said what we have been saying for months. We are out of room. And this is just wrong for our cities to be going through this. New York City, Massachusetts and other partners have constantly called on the federal government to give us the support that we need. And we're looking forward to getting that support.

 

In addition to that, last week there was a statement put out by the former Hamas leader who called for some form of action throughout the globe and the New York City Police Department responded accordingly. Those officers who were assigned traditionally to plain clothed duties for one reason or another, we put out a directive that everyone would be in uniform. We had real omnipresence out throughout the streets. We went to sensitive locations that included synagogues, churches, in mosques, other houses of worship and other sensitive locations.

 

We beefed up patrol in our subway system and made sure that everyone was on high alert. We had a series of meetings with our faith leaders and other activists and organizers and organizations throughout the entire city, and the response was to make sure that we were all on high alert to know how to respond. If you see something, we wanted people to say something. But most importantly to do something and that's to notify the NYPD.

 

Thus far, there has been no dangerous threat to the city. We're going to continue to monitor and keep an eye out, as I've always stated, for the lone wolves who are radicalized in their own homes or at other locations. But our goal, number one goal, is to keep the people of this city safe.

 

I want to commend the New York police department for doing so. In addition to the statement that was put out last week, you're continuously seeing the actions of the NYPD as we continue to drive down dangerous crime. And we're going to do continue to do so.