A New York City Hall spokesperson issued a statement earlier today, according to a CBS News report, in which the city’s “immediate response cards” program was detailed to be ending after this year, during which time the city would transition back to food delivery services that had been used prior to the current voucher program.
In a statement Thursday, a City Hall spokesperson said:
“Through the immediate response cards pilot program, we were able to reduce food waste, redirect millions of dollars to our local economy, and provide more culturally relevant food to more than 2,600 migrant families in our care. As we move towards more competitive contracting for asylum seeker programs, we have chosen not to renew the emergency contract for this pilot program once the one-year term concludes. For over two years, we have provided care to more than 222,000 migrants while saving $2 billion in asylum seeker-related costs. Thanks to our resettlement efforts, intensive case management, and national-leading Asylum Application Help Center, more than 160,000 migrants have left our shelter system and taken their next steps towards self-sufficiency. 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.”
The migrant families enrolled in the program will continue to receive debit cards through the end of the year. After that, the city will transition back to food delivery services for migrants.
According to the New York Daily News story on MSN.com, Mayor Adams talked to President Trump yesterday and discussed working together with President Trump. Coupled with the fact that, though the Mayor obviously endorsed Kamala Harris’ bid for President, he refrained from attacking President Trump during the election, it seems as though Mayor Adams may have read the handwriting on the wall before other democrats, and may have been ready to face the reality of a Trump Presidency.
Mayor Adams spoke to President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday about working together to address “issues in the city,” Adams said, without going into specifics or disclosing whether they discussed the prospect of mass deportations or Adams’ pending criminal case.
“I communicated with the president yesterday to state that there are many issues here in the city that we want to work together with the administration to address,” the mayor said at an unrelated press conference Thursday, naming infrastructure as one of the topics.
Adams also said he’s confident he’ll be able to find “common ground” with Trump on public safety. During his campaign for the White House, Trump highlighted crime in cities such as New York in criticizing Democrats’ approach to safety.
“I look forward to coordinating with any and everyone to keep this great city safe,” Adams said.
While neither Mayor Adams nor President Trump have disclosed the details of the call, including whether or not they discussed the controversial “free food for illegals” voucher program, it stands to reason that Mayor Adams’ stated intention to work with President Trump (rather than against, as Gavin Newsom has sworn to do), would likely produce exactly this turn of events — particularly if President Trump requested the ending of the program which he has previously called into question.
The Mayor did defend the voucher program, according to a report in the New York Times, yet the refusal to renew the emergency contract with Mobility Capital Finance for the voucher program speaks volumes — even if the Mayor did not give up the details.
The pilot program came under fire from the moment it was announced in February, with critics concerned that the cards could be misused and questioning whether it was fair to give preferential treatment to migrants over others in need.
Mayor Eric Adams has defended it, arguing that the program would bring down the costs of feeding migrants and give them a wider array of healthier options at supermarkets and bodegas.
But his administration has decided not to renew the one-year contract, which had been given to Mobility Capital Finance, known as MoCaFi, on a no-bid emergency basis.
The city’s Department of Investigation is investigating the contract with MoCaFi, The New York Daily News reported in October.
In explaining the city’s decision on Thursday, Mr. Adams made no mention of the investigation. He said that given the city’s “constant decrease in our population” of migrants, there was no need to renew an emergency contract.
“It was an emergency, and now we’re moving in another direction,” he said on WABC-TV, adding that the program was successful.
I can’t help but wonder if “another direction” as indicated by the Mayor is simply his politically strategic acquiescence to the new reality in which failed democratic policies are no longer simply propped up with more and more money, never receiving any pushback — because the Biden-Harris White House has been more than happy to provide the never-ending printing press to “create” those funds out of thin air; something that will quickly come to an end if President Trump makes good on even a third of his campaign promises.
There is no proof that the end of the voucher program is directly related to the phone call between the Mayor and President Trump. But if the “self-correcting” that seems to be occurring in many realms simply as a result of President Trump’s impending return to the White House is any indication — that’s all the proof I need.
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