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Mayor Eric Adams’ administration will soon start handing out pre-paid credit cards to migrant families being put up in Big Apple hotels, The Post has learned.
The $53 million pilot program, run by the New Jersey company Mobility Capital Finance, will provide asylum seekers arriving at the Roosevelt Hotel with the city cash to help them buy food, according to city records.
It’ll start with a group of 500 migrant families in short-term hotel stays and will replace the current food service offered there, according to City Hall.
The cards can only be used at bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores — and migrants must sign an affidavit swearing they will only spend the funds on food and baby supplies or they will be kicked out of the program.
The Immediate Response Card initiative appears akin to the state’s food stamp program, dubbed SNAP, which provides lower-income New Yorkers with a credit card to cover the cost of meals, and will provide funds based on the same scale.
The amount on each card will vary depending on the size of the family and whether any income is coming in, according to the details of the contract. A family of four, for instance, could be provided nearly $1,000 each month, which comes out to $35 per day for food. Cards will get refilled every 28 days.
Hard-up residents of city housing were given the same type of cards last year to pay for holiday dinners.
“MoCaFi looks forward to partnering with New York City to disburse funds for asylum seekers to purchase fresh, hot food,” said MoCaFi CEO and founder Wole Coaxum. “MoCaFi’s goal is to expand access to financial resources for individuals excluded from banking, such as asylum seekers, while helping the local economy.”
If the program is a success, the city will expand it to all migrant families staying in hotels, which is roughly 15,000 currently, officials said Friday.
“Not only will this provide families with the ability to purchase fresh food for their culturally relevant diets and the baby supplies of their choosing, but the pilot program is expected to save New York City more than $600,000 per month, or more than $7.2 million annually,” Adams spokesperson Kayla Mamelak said.
The city has been shelling out about $11 per meal to feed migrant families in hotels, something that’s long posed a problem as some asylum seekers from various countries in Central and South America, Africa and Europe may be looking for a taste of home.
Just last month, the controversial company DocGo was found to be wasting thousands of dollars on uneaten meals.
Migrants confessed to The Post in the days after that they would rather cook in their hotel rooms because the provided meals were so “bad.”
News of the pre-paid card program comes a day after The Post revealed another $137 million in contracts with city hotels to provide more than 750 rooms to asylum seekers with families.
The city is housing just over 66,000 asylum seekers after 1,500 more arrived last week as part of a crisis that is expected to cost $10 billion through 2025.
