NYC to end migrant debit card program as shelter numbers decline: Mayor Adams

New York City is winding down a controversial program that offers pre-paid debit cards to migrant families to use for purchasing food, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Thursday.

The city said that it was ending the program, which began as a pilot in February, citing a steady decrease in the number of migrants living in city-run shelters. The program initially served 500 migrant families living in hotel shelters but was scaled up to 2,600 families over the summer, according to City Hall. The initiative has been subject to heavy criticism with its detractors arguing that it prioritizes migrants over native New Yorkers in need.

The city will not renew the one-year emergency contract when it ends in January, according to the mayor, due to the declining number of migrants in the city’s care.

“It was an emergency contract … for one year,” Adams said during an ABC7 interview on Thursday night. “Now we have moved away from an emergency response because we’ve had a constant decrease in our population.”

Although the city is ending the initiative, Adams touted it as a success. He said it fulfilled its intended purpose of bringing down the amount the city was spending on feeding migrants as well as decreasing food waste.

“We were able to get several thousand individuals to have culturally sensitive food at the same time. It was successful for the time being,” he said. “We brought down food waste.”

The initiative was one of many strategies the city employed to deal with the cost of caring for the over 222,000 migrants who have passed through its shelter system since April 2022. The city is also winding down other parts of its migrant response, announcing last month that it will close the mega-tent shelter erected on Randall’s Island by early next year.

City Hall spokesperson William Fowler said the city will be replacing the MoCaFi contract, and the debit card model, by using a competitive bidding process to find the next vendor, who will handle distributing meal kits to the migrant families previously served by the program.

The administration has spent $3.6 million on the program thus far, according to the mayor’s office — with $3.2 million directly going onto the cards and the other $400,000 paying MoCaFi for administrative costs, according to the mayor’s office. Families of four with two children were given $350 a month on their cards, an amount similar to what Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients are given.

As of Nov. 3, Fowler said the city issued 4,294 prepaid debit cards under the scheme to 4,711 individuals, making up the 2,600 families.

But the program was marred by controversy from the moment it was rolled out.

Critics questioned whether migrants would misuse the cards and claimed that the newcomers were getting treated better than native New Yorkers also struggling to afford food. The criticism mostly came from Republicans and conservative columnists.

The rapper 50 Cent was an early skeptic when news of the debit cards first broke, saying he did not understand how the program would work. But subsequently said he spoke to the mayor, who addressed his questions.

Furthermore, the city Department of Investigation opened a probe into the contract with MoCaFi, the Daily News reported in early October.

However, Fowler said he does not believe the city’s decision to end the program is connected to the DOI investigation.

Fowler also insisted it has nothing to do with President-elect Donald Trump winning re-election earlier this week, as speculation has mounted that Adams is trying to curry favor with the anti-immigrant Republican in hopes of getting his federal corruption charges dismissed.

City Council Member Joann Ariola, who frequently criticizes city spending on migrants, took to social media to celebrate the program’s ending in a Thursday social media post.

“It’s about time!” she wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “This should have never been a thing to begin with. Glad that we are finally ending this drain on taxpayer dollars.”