As France and Senegal faced off at a much anticipated World Cup game, Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a brief stop at the city’s last remaining large-scale migrant shelter Tuesday afternoon to join residents watching the game.
The mayor was greeted with fanfare at the South Bronx shelter on Bruckner Boulevard, where staff hung flags and balloons.
But several shelter residents who spoke to The City Reporter described dire conditions and months of living on emergency cots with no end in sight. They complained about poor food, a pervasive bed bug infestation and little assistance navigating city bureaucracy to try to make it out of shelter.
Around 1,500 men are living there, according to the most recent figures available from City Hall.
“Here it’s like a prison. Here it’s like Delaney Hall,” Ibrahima Sow, 48, told The City Reporter in French, referring to the ICE detention center that’s seized headlines for allegations of poor conditions in Newark. “The Mayor’s here, so even if you’re not happy you need to smile.”
Residents told The City Reporter about an ongoing bed bug infestation, which Documented reported on last year. Several men said they’d gotten recent bites, and The City Reporter reviewed a photo of a bed bug taken inside the shelter in April. Others said sanitary products and sheets are in short supply, forcing residents to bathe in showers without curtains and no privacy.
Alhassane Barry, a 23-year-old from Guinea who had been living at the shelter for more than a year, said trying to sleep in that time on an emergency cot made for brief stints has been draining.
“That bed makes us tired,” he said in French.
He said staff sometimes kicked people out of the facility late at night with little justification. “They don’t give you time to explain. They just say ‘give me your ID,’” Barry said, who said a number of his friends had been kicked out in that manner.
Asked about conditions at the Bruckner shelter, Sneha Choudhary, a spokesperson for Mamdani emphasized the administration’s intent to close it down by the end of the year.
“This is part of the Mayor’s initiative to improve shelter conditions by ensuring shelters are safe, humane, and livable,” she said. “The city will phase out this shelter and bring other shelters into compliance with city rules — such as providing kitchens for families with children and limiting shelter to no more than 200 people.”
The shelter on Bruckner Boulevard first opened in February of 2025, the last in a series of large-scale migrant shelters that skirted prior city rules for group shelters.
Shelters overseen by the Department of Homeless Services can’t have more than 200 beds, except in a few exceptions, and they had to be spaced at least three feet apart. But former Mayor Eric Adams waived those and many other restrictions as the city saw an unprecedented influx of migrants making their way across the border to New York City in 2022.
The city was struggling to keep up with its unique “right to shelter” requirement that mandates it provide shelter to anyone who seeks it. As the number of migrants living in shelters grew to 69,000 people at the systems peak in January of 2024, the Eric Adams administration turned to increasingly ad hoc settings like gyms, office buildings, warehouses and tents to house the newcomers.
The migrant shelter system has since dropped down to around 30,000 people in these emergency shelters, out of a total of 88,000 people in shelters overall, according to figures from City Hall. The Adams administration closed all the other large scale shelters down during his final year in office leaving just Bruckner open, with the remaining migrants in smaller hotels overseen by the Department of Homeless Services.
Soon after Mamdani took office, he ordered agencies to come up with a plan to phase out what was left of the migrant shelter system, and later announced Bruckner would close by the end of this year.
City Hall did not answer The City Reporter’s questions about conditions at the shelter as he entered or exited the shelter Tuesday afternoon. The event was on the mayor’s public schedule but only open to invited press. The City Reporter was not invited.
As state and federal funds to handle the arrival of migrants have dried up, New York City has cut back on legal services to asylum seekers and closed the asylum seeker help center. Advocates like Adama Bah, founder of Afrikana, a nonprofit that’s been assisting African immigrants out of Harlem, said that’s left those remaining with little pathways out of shelter.
“What bothers me is the living conditions of the men there. They’re in cots, they’re not getting social services, there’s no plan for them, there’s no language access,” she said. She said she was glad Mamdani visited, but thought he should be doing more to help the remaining residents exit the shelter.
“You can’t just celebrate with people. You can’t just party with them,” she said. “You also have to be with them in the hard times.”
Jamie Powlovich, at the Coalition for the Homeless, agreed the Mamdani administration needed to do more to help people out of the shelter.
“What our clients need is meaningful pathways out of homelessness,” she said. “The City should make Bruckner residents categorically eligible for CityFHEPS, fund on-site housing specialists to help individuals secure permanent housing, and immediately address these ongoing conditions at the site.”
Other shelter residents who spoke to The City Reporter said they were thankful for the place to stay and described it as cleaner than other shelters they’d stayed in.
“Here is better for me,” said Mohamed Ly, a 33-year-old from Senegal, in French.
He’d been renting a bed in a two-bedroom apartment he shared with eight people that was often dirty and loud. “Here is better.’ If i want to go to bed early no one is going to bother me.”
He welcomed the mayor’s visit for the Senegal match.
“That brings me pleasure,” he said in French.
Senegal lost to France three to one. Mamandi didn’t stay for the full game, leaving the shelter after about 25 minutes.
“He only did a flash to see how it was here, just to come see the game,” said Barry. “Maybe the next time he’ll have more time, we could explain to him what’s happening here.”
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