Even as Mayor Eric Adams is forcing city budget cuts he says are necessitated by the cost of aiding migrants, his administration is spending billions of dollars off its books — much of it on companies with extensive histories of complaints over their practices.
Adams handed much of his migrant aid program to the city Health & Hospitals Corporation (HHC), a quasi-government agency that is not subject to the oversight of the city’s fiscal watchdog.
Comptroller Brad Lander recently
made headlines when he refused to sign off on a $432 million city contract with DocGo, which provides shelter and services for migrants, citing irregularities and omissions in its paper trail. The contract was made through the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which falls under the comptroller’s oversight authority.
Lander also flagged the company’s lack of experience in housing and social services as well as its business practices,
writing: “Every vendor awarded a City contract must be found to have the requisite business integrity to justify the award of public dollars.”
But meanwhile, the comptroller has tried unsuccessfully to obtain documents or details on what are now at least 38 Health & Hospitals migrant-related contracts, costing taxpayers more than $2.1 billion. Adams has said that the cost to the city of aiding migrants could amount to $4 billion per year.
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