As the city and state struggle to find shelter for more than 40,000 migrants, some New Yorkers are stepping in to provide emergency housing in their own homes.

Camille Napoleon opened her home on the Lower East Side to newly arrived migrants in August.

So far, she said more than 40 migrant men have found refuge there. At one, time Napoleon said 13 of them crammed into her two-bedroom apartment.

What You Need To Know

  • Camille Napoleon opened her home on the Lower East Side to newly arrived migrants in August

  • So far, she said more than 40 migrant men have found refuge there

  • Some migrants have found jobs in the city that pay for their immigration lawyers

"For me, aiding others is all I know," Napoleon said. “In this small space, there’s safety, there’s security, there’s love. There’s everything that feels like home.”

This role for Napoleon came about out of necessity. Not hers, theirs.

Yohandre Palmar and Franklin Julio are asylum seekers who have stayed with Napoleon since August.

“God has rewarded us, and I speak in plural for all of us, my brothers. We’ve been rewarded with an excellent mom who received us here in New York," said Palmar.

Napoleon volunteered with a non-profit organization over the summer distributing clothes to migrants as they arrived to the city on buses from Texas.

A few hours after being sent to a men’s shelter on 30th Street and First Avenue, Napoleon received a panicked call from Palmar and Julio.

“He’s like, 'I can’t be here. I’d rather live on the street. There is non-stop narcotics, drug dealing, stealing, fighting,'” Palmar said. “It’s as if it were a jail."

Palmar and Julio said they feared for their lives in their home country of Venezuela. They said they were targeted by the government and sought asylum in the United States.

“We came from trauma to then go into more trauma here,” Julio said.

Julio flew from Columbia to Mexico and met Palmar on their separate journeys to the Mexican border.

“I was hungry. I was sick. I was depressed. I wanted to die,” said Palmar.

Palmar said he walked for more than 2,000 miles from Columbia to Mexico.

Both migrants found jobs in the city that pay for their immigration lawyers, and they've applied for asylum.

“There are always those people who are in favor or against immigrants. All we can do is walk with our head held high and do the right thing,” Julio said.

Julio and Palmer are waiting on court dates that could be years away because of an overburdened system. Until their request for sanctuary is approved, they're being fed, have a roof over their head and they also have something else they didn't expect: a family of their own.

“God gifted me sons from Venezuela,” Napoleon said.