If you haven’t seen any pictures from the New York City homeless encampment on Randall’s Island, that’s probably because the municipal government and the liberal media don’t seem to like talking about it. It’s quite the arrangement, though, and it was just set up in September. It’s basically a tent city with 24/7 services for all of the homeless people and illegal migrants who wound up being sent there. Residents have regular laundry service, choices of “culturally appropriate” food, televisions, and more. And it’s all absolutely free! (Well, nothing is actually free, obviously. The taxpayers are footing the bill.) But now, barely a month after the grand opening, the facility is being shut down. The occupants will be relocated to Manhattan and given rooms in the Watson Hotel.  (Daily Caller)

Just one month opening a tent city on Randall’s Island, New York City is shutting it and transferring the adult single male migrants who have been living in the makeshift complex to the Watson Hotel in Manhattan.

The 84,000-square-foot facility was opened in October to assist with the sharp increase of asylum seekers being transferred to New York City primarily from the overwhelmed Texas-Mexico border. The Randall’s Island facility boasted such amenities as fluff-and-fold laundry service, an array of entertainment including TV and video games and “culturally appropriate” meals from a rotating menu.

“The City is doing the right thing by moving people to a setting where they can have their own space and get settled. We are glad that this new location will be much more accessible to public transit so clients can access services and easily travel to and from the site,” Legal Aid Society attorney Joshua Goldfein stated according to ABC News.

The Watson Hotel’s website currently says that it has “suspended operations until further notice.” But you can still take a virtual tour of the place at the link provided. Prior to suspending operations, the Watson was charging $454 per night for its most modest rooms. Now that it will be filled with the homeless and the newly arrived illegal aliens, who do you suppose will be paying for these plush accommodations?

Isn’t it amazing how many big announcements like this one wind up being unveiled immediately after a national election? Proponents of the move are saying that the hotel is a much better location because it’s closer to the subways and other public services. Putting two and two together here, it’s not hard to imagine that the city didn’t want all of those inconvenient migrants and homeless people wandering around Manhattan just as people were going to cast their ballots. It would have been another reminder of how badly conditions have deteriorated in the Big Apple. But now that election is safely behind them they can simply dump them all back into Manhattan.

New York City is supposed to be in the process of completing its reopening phase following the pandemic and coaxing more tourists to return. Can they afford to simply shut down a large hotel in the middle of one of the major tourist draws? And do they really want all of those people flooding the subways and buses in Manhattan again?

It’s also worth asking how long they expect this situation to continue. The homeless aren’t going to simply disappear and it will take years or even decades for all of those migrants’ asylum claims to be heard. One homeless advocate is already pushing Mayor Eric Adams to move everyone out of the hotels and into permanent housing. Do you suppose that the people in New York City who have jobs and pay for their own housing (in addition to paying for these homeless benefits) are eventually going to start asking, ‘hey. What about us? Where’s our free housing?’

As with every other large city with a significant homeless population, none of this even resembles a viable, long-term strategy. Even if you fill up ten hotels or start confiscating apartment buildings and filling them with the homeless, the word is going to get around. Homeless will begin flocking to New York from all over the county once they learn there is unlimited free housing and other amenities. The challenge is difficult, obviously, but the solution to the homeless crisis is not to just give away more free stuff. It’s to return the homeless to normal, productive lives.