Language barrier leaves migrant family stuck in NYC shelter without food

Language barrier leaves migrant family stuck in NYC shelter without food


Lost in translation!

A migrant mother and son who endured a dangerous two month trek to come to the United States have spent days schlepping to the Port Authority for daily food after city officials put them in an uptown hotel that never told them meals are available.

However, food is offered for breakfast and lunch there, according to two other tenants — but the signage telling residents where to go and how to get the meals is all in English, not Spanish.

And that’s the only language that 32-year-old mother, Alenmary Yariby Oliveros Jaures, and her 13-year-old son, Angel, speak. The pair recounted their ordeal in an interview at the Port Authority on Friday.

Language barrier leaves migrant family stuck in NYC shelter without food
Immigrants Alenmary Yariby Oliveros Juarez, 32, and her son Angel Eduardo Torres Oliveros, 13, sit at the Port Authority bus terminal.
Georgett Roberts/NYPost

“My mother wants to work so that she can have money because it’s really not comfortable to be receiving food from other people every day, she wants to become independent,” Angel said in a translated interview.

Alenmary cannot work because she does not have authorization.

The pair fled Venezuela to escape the soaring crime and economic collapse that have defined the term of the country’s strong man, Nicolás Maduro.

Once they finally arrived at Port Authority on Sunday, they were taken to the city’s intake center for homeless families in The Bronx — known as PATH — where they say they spent two days eating bread and tuna while awaiting housing.

Migrants have been arriving at Port Authority by the busload from Texas.
Migrants have been arriving at Port Authority by the busload from Texas.
Getty Images

Angel said, in a translated interview, that was the last meal they got after landing a room on Tuesday at the Dawn Hotel on St. Nicholas Place near 150th Street, which received an average review on Google of just 1.9 stars.

So, the mother and son have returned to the Port Authority daily since Wednesday to seek food from volunteers who are greeting the buses with new migrants that often arrive daily.

On days when there are no buses, like Friday, the family is forced to either beg for food or go hungry.

After hearing their plight, Post reporters at the Port Authority bought them a meal and gave them money for their subway fare back uptown, where a Post reporter saw them again.

Two other tenants at the Hamilton Heights facility told a reporter who stopped by after hearing about the family’s struggles that the facility does offer food, but one said they weren’t surprised the migrants had no idea how to get it.

“They serve breakfast and lunch downstairs, but they don’t tell you,” one tenant said. “You just have to read the signs and know to go down there.”

The person added: “If the signs are in English, how will they know if nobody tells them?

Industry insiders say that city shelter contracts typically require providers to either provide access to on-site kitchen facilities or deliver meals, though the exact regulations vary from site to site.

Documents attached to the Department of Homeless Services’ emergency requests for 5,600 hotel rooms to house the incoming migrants tell potential bidders that proposals “should include a food.”

MetroCards
The mother and son duo were given MetroCards.
Georgett Roberts/NYPost

The DHS solicitations for dedicated migrant shelter operations also instruct the non-profit operators to ensure they have bilingual staff available.

However, none of the rooms sought under either emergency requests for contract proposals had been opened as of Thursday.

“Oh, that’s not good,” said a man who answered the phone at a number listed for the shelter’s operator, Bronx Family Housing, but declined to identify himself.

City Hall and DHS did not immediately return requests for comment.

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