Mayor Eric Adams’ administration plans to stop giving prepaid debit cards to migrant families in New York City, ending a pilot program conservative critics have fiercely attacked.
The program, which city officials have touted as an innovative cost-cutting measure, will conclude at the end of the year, City Hall spokesperson William Fowler said. The city since late March has provided prepaid debit cards totaling $3.6 million to some 2,600 migrant families living in hotels so that they can buy food and baby supplies. The participants comprise a fraction of the roughly 60,000 migrants currently residing in city-run shelters.
The financial technology company Mobility Capital Finance, or MoCaFi, was hired last year under a no-bid, emergency contract to run the program for a one-year term.
City Comptroller Brad Lander has since revoked the mayor’s ability to easily enter into emergency deals for migrant services. City Hall would have to pursue an open bidding process to extend the program.
Fowler said it was unclear if continuing the program was necessary as the number of new arrivals to the city declines. Adams in early October said the number of new migrants arriving and seeking shelter in the city had fallen for 14 consecutive weeks.
“We will continue to implement and learn from innovative pilot programs like the immediate response cards program as we care for hundreds of new arrivals every week,” Fowler said in a statement.
The amounts loaded on the debit cards vary depending on family size. A family of four with two children under age 5 receive about $350 a week during their stay in a city shelter, administration officials have said.
The debit cards are intended to save the city money on providing food for migrants, as well as to reduce food waste at shelters and support local businesses where families could instead buy food. The program has cost half as much as the boxed-meal delivery service it replaced, according to Fowler, the City Hall spokesperson.
Conservative commentators and some elected officials have criticized the initiative, claiming it was ripe for waste, fraud and abuse. No such concerns materialized, Fowler said.
The debit cards can only be used at grocery and convenience stores and bodegas, and do not work at other businesses, according to city officials and MoCaFi staff. Families who receive the assistance are required to sign affidavits stating they will only use the cards for their intended purpose, and violators can have their cards taken away.
Fowler said the Adams administration is leaving the door open to pursuing a similar program in the future.
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