NYC backs off plan to shelter migrants in public school gyms — but could revive idea if needed, says Mayor Adams aide

New York City is backing off a controversial plan to fit out public school gymnasiums as emergency migrant shelters — without ruling out their future use.

Mayor Adams had been eyeing 20 school gyms to house asylum seekers for short periods, as the city struggles to find space and braces for a potential migrant surge after a pandemic-era border policy expired last week.

But as parent-led protests continued, the Adams administration pumped the brakes Wednesday on the gyms plan.

City officials declined to disavow the plan entirely, leaving the door open to use school gyms if it proves necessary.

“They are moving away from the school sites for now, but [we] reserve the right to use them again if they can’t handle the influx,” said a city government source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Two city government sources familiar with the matter said migrants sheltered in the gym at Brooklyn P.S. 188 in Coney Island this week were expected to be moved to a building in Manhattan that previously housed Touro College.

The former Touro College site on W. 31st St. near Eighth Ave. will open as a new emergency migrant housing site with capacity for 450 people, according to the sources, who were briefed on the matter by administration officials on a call Wednesday morning.

It was not immediately clear how soon the ex-Touro facility could open for migrants. Workers from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services were seen outside the building Wednesday afternoon.

The schools that have already housed migrants are Brooklyn’s P.S. 188, P.S. 17 and M.S. 577, the latter two of which are located in the same Williamsburg building, as well as the former Richard H. Hungerford School on Staten Island.

While most gym operations will wind down for now, the Staten Island location is expected to continue housing migrants, given that it’s not an active school, according to the sources.

The Daily News first reported that other schools preparing for arrivals were P.S. 18 and P.S. 132, also in Williamsburg, as well as P.S. 189 in Crown Heights and P.S. 172 in Sunset Park.

Rolling back the use of school gyms for now is not a policy reversal, said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom — who indicated the administration is willing to reactivate the school gym plan.

“The truth of the matter is if 1,000 people come in, I’m going to have to use an emergency site,” Williams-Isom told the Daily News outside City Hall after an at times contentious migrant crisis briefing.

It was not immediately clear how soon sleeping cots would be removed from all the school gyms that were prepped for migrants. Removing the cots would restore students’ access to indoor sports and programming.

Jessamyn Lee, a Brooklyn public school parent who serves as the borough’s representative on the citywide Panel for Educational Policy, said NYPD officers cleared out from the P.S. 17-M.S. 577 and P.S. 18 gyms Wednesday afternoon. The doors at both locations were back open again, and barricades that separated the gyms from the schoolyards had been taken down, Lee added.

Earlier Wednesday, parents of students at P.S. 17-M.S. 577 on N. 5th St. in Williamsburg rallied for the second day in a row, citing concerns about losing resources and school safety with adult migrants on premises. The school is also a Summer Rising site, where students expect to take classes and participate in camp activities after the regular school year ends next month.

Schools Chancellor David Banks in a media appearance Wednesday morning before the gym policy shift said he understood families are emotional and want to ensure that their kids are safe, as the situation unfolded quickly and without enough time to meet with parents — but described the reaction to the use of gyms as “a little disappointing.”

“There’ll be no graduations that are going to be canceled; there’ll be no proms that have to be canceled,” Banks told NY1. “There’s a lot of rumors that are flying.”

The gym initiative came after city officials issued a memo earlier this month asking all municipal agencies to identify sites that could be repurposed as temporary shelters to prepare for the expiration of Title 42, a federal policy that let authorities quickly expel migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border during the pandemic.

“We’re certainly hopeful that it doesn’t turn out that those of the schools in fact have to be used,” Banks said.