More than 7,300 migrants who have arrived in New York in the past two years will benefit from the expansion of a program that gives families debit cards to buy food, an initiative with which Mayor Eric Adams’ administration seeks to reduce the costs of care provided to them in shelters in the city.
The city is expected to distribute the vaccines in the next six months. cards – at a total cost of about US$2.6 million – to migrants living in hotels converted into shelters and paid for by the city, a program that will replace the direct delivery of boxes with prepared food, a formula that was more expensive and also generated complaints about the low quality of the food.
The credit card initiative began as a pilot program three months ago amid widespread skepticism over concerns that immigrants were being given preferential treatment over New Yorkers in need of such help and worries that the card could be misused, the paper said. New York Times.
However, to date 900 families or nearly 3,000 migrants, including 1,300 children, have successfully used the card, which was launched after measures were taken to prevent fraud.
New York is one of the cities that has received the most immigrants for the past two years, sent largely by Texas Mayor Greg Abbott, plus others who have arrived on their own. At this time, the city provides services to more than 60,000 migrants, many of them Venezuelans, in hotels converted into shelters that are paid for with public funds, to whom it also provides food, health services and education for children.
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With the expansion of the card program among immigrants, the number of hotels covered also increases from 3 to 17 and could provide services to 1,230 people per month, which is equivalent to 2% of the migrant population, the official added. NOW.
For the past year, DocGo, a medical services company, has delivered food and other services to certain hotels housing migrants, without a contract in place, the newspaper reported.
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DocGo has spent about US$13 million between July 2023 and April 2024 and could receive up to US$32 million for these services through July. The company has said that during that period it delivered more than US$1.3 million worth of meals to more than 16,000 migrants.
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