“Look what happened at the hotels where the hotels were filled up,” the former governor told host John Catsimatidis on “Cat’s Roundtable” on WABC-77 radio, referring to the city’s desperate attempt to house the flood of recent asylum-seekers from the US’ southern border.
“[The real estate industry] really is the backbone of the city. You’ll really find out how bad it can be if they do move away. Or you have situations like you had in the ’70s where you had the proliferation of crime and the un-affordability of housing… created a really squalid condition around the city.”
He said this weekend marked one year since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent the first busload of asylum-seekers to the Big Apple from the US border with Mexico.He said fed-up New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams also spoke out last week about the issue.“The excess migrants, mostly males … chose to sleep on the street rather than go to another facility,” Paterson, 69, said.