A castle-owner hotel is pleading with Mayor Eric Adams to deliver his helpless, worn-out, huddled foreigners in short, migrants in upstate New York City.
Owner of the famed historic Oheka Castle hotel and catering hall in Huntington, Long Island, Gary Melius, claims that his representative contacted Adams’ administration weeks ago with an offer to take over the 115-room Quality Inn in Massena, close to the Canadian border in St. Lawrence County.
Castle Owner Offers Migrant Housing Solution
Although the city is scrambling to find a way to lodge thousands of migrants—dozens of whom were forced to sleep on cardboard on the pavement outside Manhattan’s temporary processing facility last week—the hotel owner claimed he has not yet received an answer.
The Oheka Castle in Huntington, Long Island, is owned by Gary Melius. New York Times
The cost of a nightly room at Melius’s Quality Inn is about $120. Taxpayer money is provided to hotel owners at a predetermined rate for housing migrants.
Melius also owns a failing Quality Inn close to the Canadian border, which he thinks would be the perfect place for migrants in New York City. Melius said that he would not be providing accommodations for migrants at his Oheka Castle, one of the most exclusive wedding reception locations on Long Island, where hotel rooms cost between $400 and $1,200 per night.
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Hotelier Helps Find Shelter for Migrants
The hotelier described the immigration issue as horrible. His shooting outside the Oheka almost ten years ago remains unsolved.
Brad Gerstman, a lobbyist for Melius, said that he searched among all of his customers and those with whom he has other business ties in order to locate extra room for the migrants because he wanted to support the city he loves.
Since the spring of 2022, around 100,000 asylum seekers have entered New York City.
The city’s overcrowded shelter system is presently housing more than 56,000 migrants, or more than half of its 100,000 total residents.
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