NEW YORK (PIX11) – The Roosevelt Hotel opened its doors once more to welcome and house migrants arriving in New York City.

Since last year, nearly 70,000 migrants have passed through the big apple, and overly 42,000 are still in the city’s care, according to the mayor’s office.

On Sunday night, three more bus loads of people arrived at the Roosevelt Hotel, with about 300 asylum seekers looking for a good night’s rest.

The iconic hotel, which shuttered its doors back in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will softly launch with 175 rooms and will be scaled up to 850 open rooms in the coming months. 

Last Saturday, Mayor Eric Adams announced the launch of the city’s first asylum seeker arrival center and the city’s ninth humanitarian emergency response and relief center.

“With the opening of yet another relief center, we will continue to ask our federal and state partners for a real strategy,” he said. “While this relief center will create good-paying, union jobs without federal or state assistance, we will be unable to continue treating new arrivals with the dignity and care that they deserve.”

A previous plan by city officials to send migrants to hotels in neighboring suburbs was met with resistance. Rockland County got a temporary restraining order to stop the Armoni Inn and Suites from taking in asylum seekers. Both Rockland and Orange counties designed emergency declarations to block housing for migrants.

Since the beginning of the migrant crisis, New York City — mostly out of its own pocket — has opened a slew of areas that have acted as emergency shelters.

A study done by The New York City Independent Budget Office suggested the city will spend anywhere from $2.7 to $3.7 billion on the migration crisis — $1.5 billion less than originally expected by the mayor’s office.

“With the expiration of Title 42, we face an even larger number of individuals and families seeking asylum in New York City,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom. “While we are responding to the immediate need, we call on the state and federal government to do more.”

This story comprises reporting by the Associated Press.