Beginning in February 2023, Hester Street (HST) collaborated with longtime partner Make the Road New York (MRNY) to design a borough-wide community survey in Queens to determine which outreach strategies best serve New York’s community of asylum seekers.
With the support of MRNY’s key organizing staff, Hester Street’s team distributed the survey to 766 asylum seekers and then collected and analyzed the data in order to create a preliminary report of survey responses released in June 2023. Immediately after the report’s publication, MRNY presented the preliminary survey results to the New York City Council to advocate for more resources for asylum seekers in the midst of a historic surge in migrants to New York City from border states.
The survey identifies gaps in access to basic resources and areas for improvement within existing support services. It also highlights the need for strategic and sustainable policy solutions that enable asylum seekers to build their lives in NYC and advance their communities. Our team collaborated with MRNY to produce a final report on the results of the asylum survey, published in October 2023.
