Eric Adams asks for investigation into disputed story about homeless veterans being displaced by immigrants

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Sunday that he’ll ask state officials to launch a probe into the now-disputed story about homeless veterans being displaced by migrants to make room in the state. 

“It is really troubling,” Adams said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart.” “I’m asking our local and state authorities to investigate what happened here. It was clearly fabricated and it was a conscious decision to fabricate it, from what we are getting. A thorough investigation will determine if any criminality is involved.” 

Adams noted to Capehart that “there was never a moment where veterans were displaced,” saying that it’s “unfortunate” that someone would fabricated a story that was reported across local media outlets. 

“But there was never a moment where veterans were displaced. We would never do that. And those who put together this scheme and put together this plan to really put a negative light on what we coordinated to do to send migrants throughout the entire state, a real decompression strategy,” Adams added. “We’ve never displaced veterans, someone fabricated that story. And it was blasted across our local tabloids and papers and it’s really unfortunate that someone would do something like this.”

Adams’ remarks comes after New York state lawmaker Brian Maher (R) told The Times-Union that the story of hotels in upstate New York throwing out homeless veterans to make room for migrants bused from the city was false. 

Maher said that Sharon Toney-Finch, the CEO of Orange County nonprofit Yerik Israel Toney Foundation, made the original claim that 15 homeless veterans were thrown out of the Crossroads Hotel and another five were forced out of two other upstate hotels.

The newspaper reported that Toney-Finch was unraveled emotionally when asked to provide evidence on the claim, failing to do so including providing bank statements to Maher. 

One of the purported veterans said that he was paid by Toney-Finch to lie about being thrown out, according to the Times-Union. The Crossroads and the two other upstate hotels confirmed that they never had dealings with Toney-Finch’s nonproft or never housed any veterans. 

Toney-Finch’s claim caught some attention in the media, with conservative outlets Fox News and the New York Post scooping up the story. 

Republican governors in southern U.S. states have been busing migrants to northern, Democratic-led cities since last year in protest of the end of Title 42.