NY City ending voucher program for migrants

New York City’s Mayor, Eric Adams, announced last weekend that his administration will no longer issue vouchers to migrants/or asylum seekers to pay for food. The pilot program distributed debit cards to migrant families staying in city-funded hotels, allowing them to buy food and other supplies.

Now, it is no longer so. Mayor Adams announced the decision to discontinue the prepaid debit card financed by the City of New York, stating that while some characterized the program as an additional expense, it was initially conceived as a way to save money by no longer buying food the asylum seekers did not want to eat. The City estimates it cost half as much as the boxed-meal delivery service it replaced.

“As we move towards the more competitive contracting for the asylum seekers programs, we have chosen not to renew the emergency contract for this pilot program once the one-year term concludes,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement.

The card distributed at the City’s intake center at the Roosevelt Hotel gives a family of four about $350 per week to go shopping at local stores for food and supplies.

Financial technology company Mobility Capital Finance, or MoCaFi, was hired last year under a no-bid, emergency contract to run the program for one year. Under the agreement, it receives about $400,000.

The mayor did not give a specific reason for ending the program.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has since revoked the City’s ability to enter emergencies.

Since March, the City of New York has provided prepaid debit cards totaling $3.2 million to some 2,600 migrant families living in hotels so that they can buy food and baby supplies.