In the heart of Bushwick is a Venezuelan barber who for years has opened his Brooklyn home to friends, acquaintances and strangers arriving from his native country.

Juan Sanchez, a 51-year-old father and husband who comes from a large family and has many cousins, said he learned early on to share what he has. His late mother, he said, taught him to always stretch his resources to assist others.

This year, Sanchez’s three-bedroom apartment has become a haven for more and more travelers who are seeking a new home in the U.S. due to political and economic turmoil in their home country.

“It doesn’t matter to me where they’re from or who they are,” Sanchez said in Spanish. “What matters to me is to know the person and help them however I can, so the person receives that human warmth of family that they left in Venezuela.”

There were seven recent arrivals staying with the Sanchez family in late October, with six occupying two of the bedrooms and a seventh sleeping on the couch. Sanchez said the typical stay lasts a few weeks to a few months until his guests find work and earn enough money to pay for a room of their own.

When Sanchez began helping his countrymen six or seven years ago, he said they flew from Venezuela to New York City with visas in hand. There were not as many as today and the first batch of people he helped had far better financial prospects. His recent guests, on the other hand, have entered the U.S. via Mexico under much more harrowing conditions.

They had all taken different paths to reach the Brooklyn apartment — but all were among approximately 23,000 asylum-seekers who have traveled to New York City from Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and other Latin American countries in recent months.

Click "listen" to hear more details, and visit Gothamist for the full story.