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In line with metropolis officers, a controversial voucher program for migrants in New York Metropolis to get meals utilizing debit playing cards is ending.
New York Metropolis introduced that it’s going to discontinue a program that gave vouchers to migrants to pay for meals, placing an finish to an initiative that had been lengthy assailed by conservatives and related pundits. The vouchers got here within the type of pay as you go debit playing cards. “As we transfer in direction of extra aggressive contracting for asylum seeker packages, we’ve chosen to not renew the emergency contract for this pilot program as soon as the one-year time period concludes,” New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams mentioned in an announcement.
This system, which started in late March, offered debit playing cards for meals and child provides to 2,600 migrants who arrived within the metropolis and had been staying in motels funded by town. The debit playing cards might solely be used at comfort shops, bodegas, and supermarkets. They’d be unusable at different companies. Mobility Capital Finance, or MoCaFi, was the non-public firm that gained a no-bid, emergency contract for $400,000 to run this system for one 12 months.
This system distributed the playing cards on the Roosevelt Resort in midtown Manhattan to individuals, totaling $3.2 million. It was a sea change from a earlier meals distribution system managed by one other non-public medical firm, DocGo, which obtained a $432 million contract from town earlier than troubling allegations pressured town to part the contract out.
Conservatives have attacked this system since its creation, claiming it was ripe for fraud, however no situations of unhealthy conduct with the debit playing cards have occurred. Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander additionally beforehand revoked town’s means to enter into emergency offers for migrant companies. Whereas an estimated 700 migrants are getting into New York Metropolis every week in search of asylum, 1,000 are making their method out. Mayor Adams William Fowler, a spokesperson at Metropolis Corridor, mentioned that Mayor Adams is open to doubtlessly pursuing the installment of an analogous program sooner or later. “We are going to proceed to implement and be taught from progressive pilot packages just like the fast response playing cards program as we take care of a whole lot of latest arrivals each week,” he mentioned in an interview.