More than 70 Senegalese migrants discovered living in cramped NYC basement where they sleep in shifts
Dozens of migrant men have been living in a cramped basement under a Queens furniture store — where beds are so in-demand that only half the inhabitants can sleep there at one time, city officials said Tuesday.
Fire inspectors were called to 132-03 Liberty Ave. to investigate reports of a large collection of e-bike batteries. Paul Martinka
Fire prevention inspectors discovered the illegal boarding house Monday night when they were called to 132-02 Liberty Avenue in South Richmond Hill to investigate reports of a large collection of e-bike batteries, according to the FDNY.
That’s when they found 40 migrants, mostly from Senegal, sleeping in the basement and on the first floor — and realized the true number was actually twice that.
“A further probe revealed that up to 80 individuals have been living there, taking turns to sleep due to the limited space available,” fire officials said, adding that it issued a vacate order for the building.
Inspectors from the city Department of Buildings found that the commercial space and the cellar had been illegally converted into a makeshift hostel, replete with 14 bunk beds on the first-floor and 13 regular beds packed in the basement, officials said.
The cellar also had no ventilation, no natural light, illegal plumbing and too few exits for the amount of people sleeping there, inspectors said.
The buildings department issued a full vacate order for the basement and first floor due to “severe overcrowding and hazardous fire trap conditions,” officials said.
Ebou Sarr, the 47-year-old owner of the furniture business, admitted that he charged each man a $300 monthly “contribution” to live in his little hostel — but said it was a donation, and he never took more than the migrants could afford.
The money, he said, would eventually help “get a building so they can all come and leave the shelter.”
“They don’t even have relatives here, nowhere to go, sleeping on the trains and the streets,” Sarr told The Post on Tuesday. “So we have to intervene.”
Sarr, who is from Senegal himself, said he started the pet project when his cousin arrived from the country in October.
His friend’s brother came the following month, he said, and then more showed up — some from Senegal, others from West African countries like Mauritania or Gambia.
Sarr said he was trying to teach some of the men to sell furniture, and splitting the profits when they brought in a sale.
“I am helping the guys,” Sarr said. “I’m giving them somewhere to stay. Some of the guys who heard about me, they weren’t even going to the shelter. They were coming straight to me.”
The men slept two to a bed, Sarr said. And after the basement filled up, he set up a dozen or so queen-sized bunk beds on the main level that could sleep another four men each.
The housing was necessary, he said, because of the 30-day limit on single adult migrants in city shelters, after which they have to reapply for entry.
“Here you don’t have problems,” said Malick Ndiaye, 31, who came to the US from Senegal nearly a year ago and had been staying at Sarr’s boarding house for two months.
