Politico: Don't buy Adams' spin on Abbott -- he's covering up for lies about NYC's failing shelter system

“Get stuff done”? Hardly, as Politico reports this morning on Eric Adams’ attempts to deflect his own failures onto Greg Abbott. Texas has sent perhaps a few hundred illegal immigrants into New York City for the “sanctuary” that Mayor Adams proudly proclaimed last year, which Adams now blames for a breakdown in services to the homeless.

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That’s nonsense, reports Janaki Chadha. New York City’s shelter system began breaking down when Adams took office, and Adams hasn’t gotten any “stuff done” to resolve it — except to shift blame to Texas:

New York City’s sprawling network of homeless shelters are bursting at the seams as rents skyrocket, evictions accelerate and a new mandate from Mayor Eric Adams pushes homeless people out of the subway system and off the streets.

But the mayor, a moderate Democrat who took office in January, isn’t blaming those factors for causing the shelter crisis, which began months ago. Instead, he’s deflecting, suggesting New Yorkers should look to Texas, to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and his decision to bus migrants from towns near the border to Washington and, now, New York. …

Yet the influx of asylum seekers doesn’t tell the whole story, and the problems at shelters had been building for much of the mayor’s term. And elected officials, homeless advocates and shelter providers now say Adams has turned a blind eye to a long-mounting and predictable crisis.

Now Adams is in a bind and turning to less-than-ideal solutions, like placing people in commercial hotels, as he and his administration scramble to bring new facilities online swiftly and add capacity to the straining shelter system.

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Adams is still attempting to deflect blame onto Abbott, perhaps even more desperately than before. In an interview with CBS New York this morning, Adams called Abbott an “un-American governor” and insisted that the entire problem in New York originated in Texas:

“Not only is this a humanitarian response we’re doing, but by law we’re required to ensure that anyone that arrives in this city should have shelter if they need it,” the mayor said.

Adams has called Abbott an “anti-American governor” for his actions and talked about sending bus loads of New Yorkers to Texas to campaign against him.

“I don’t believe that he’s the type of person that should be running a state as important as Texas, and whatever I can do to assist in having him removed is what I’m going to do,” he said Friday.

This sounds as though Adams wants to stay one step ahead of New Yorkers who want to remove the real source of the problem. Those efforts are starting to fall apart, however, as Adams’ administration faces new questions about its competence and honesty. A whistleblower came forward yesterday to claim that the city fired her for opposing the spin from the Adams administration:

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The chief spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Homeless Services was fired Friday after pushing back against alleged lies and omissions by her boss regarding illegal conditions in the city’s homeless shelter system, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Email and text messages provided to the News 4 I-Team suggest that the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Julia Savel had resisted efforts by Social Services Commissioner Gary Jenkins to conceal crowded conditions in the city’s homeless shelter system from his superiors at City Hall, from the media and from the public.

In one text message dated July 20, Savel indicated to a City Hall spokeswoman that she was planning to inquire about moving to a different agency, saying “Just can’t work for a commish who is ok with covering up something illegal.”

Text messages produced to NBC New York show that the dispute went all the way to Adams’ office:

Screenshots of text messages obtained by the I-Team suggest Savel disclosed the violation to the mayor’s press office against Commissioner Jenkins’ wishes.

“I was just told that I’m not allowed to tell city hall anything anymore,” Savel wrote in a July 20 text message to Eric Adams’ deputy press secretary, Kate Smart.

“Gary was trying to not tell city hall that we broke the law. I got yelled at for telling you. I’ve known since Monday.”

The mayor’s spokeswoman replied “Oy.”

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Small wonder Adams now wants to demonize Abbott. He’s deflecting about a lot more than a policy failure.

Perhaps Abbott should send a few Texans to door-knock an effort to have the state investigate Adams over this cover-up. That will likely get greeted with more enthusiasm than Adams’ door-knocking for Beto on behalf of the Big Apple’s “sanctuary city” pretensions.

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Jazz Shaw 7:20 PM | March 18, 2024
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