The far-left New York City councilwoman representing Manhattan’s affluent Upper West Side,  Gale Brewer, is pushing for more laundry machines to be installed in the neighborhood’s public schools to accommodate the growing number of migrant students with dirty clothes. 

The request comes in the wake of a recent survey of the Upper West Side’s School District 3, taken by the Councilwoman, which found that over 1,700 students from the area live in temporary housing, consisting primarily of shelters, of which 581 were migrants. There are roughly 18,000 students in the district. The Upper West Side has a higher proportion of public housing projects than many other wealthy Manhattan neighborhoods.

In a letter addressed to the chancellor of the Department of Education, David Banks, Ms. Brewer wrote, “Students who do not have clean clothes are less likely to go to school. I feel strongly that laundry service should be accessible where student leaders determine that the lack of clean clothes is preventing their students from accessing education.”

According to a local outlet that first reported the story, West Side Rag, most Upper West Side schools do not have washers or dryers. Of the 45 schools, 38 have neither of the appliances. 

According to the School Construction Authority, installing the appliances can cost between $50-$100,000 per school, largely due to the infrastructure upgrades required. One neighborhood school, P.S. 166, told the councilwoman’s office that the installation would require demolishing a wall. 

The problem of migrant children needing their dirty clothing washed has plagued school administrators across the city’s five boroughs. 

“If students don’t have any clothes, they don’t want to come to school. So when we provide that service, they’re able to come in and wash their clothes,” an assistant principal for East Harlem’s Public School 38, Vanessa Ramos, told CBS News. According to the outlet, 125 of the 218 students in the neighborhood school were migrants. 

Should the city decide to install the machines, it would not be the first time the Big Apple has spent large amounts of money to wash dirty clothing for migrants. In October, a report by the Post detailed the city had been doling out millions to a contractor in Queens to provide free laundry service to migrants in shelters, with the total annual cost of migrant laundry services being “at least in the eight-figure range.”

At the time, Ms. Brewer, who previously served as the Manhattan borough president, complained that some city contracts for laundry services were overpriced and that there were significant disparities between different contractors. Officials defended the laundry program to the Post at the time as being necessary due to the lack of laundry services available at shelters.