New York City Comptroller Brad Lander (Democrat) audit On Tuesday, he accused the administration of Mayor Eric Adams (Democrat) of “shoddy oversight” of the city’s contract with Rapid Reliable Testing NY LLC, also known as DocGo.
The Adams administration signed a $432 million contract with the company to provide shelter, lodging, food and other services to undocumented immigrants living in the city.
“Pest infestation, inedible food, poor service.”
Lander, who recently ran for mayor to unseat Adams, said an audit conducted by an independent group of auditors uncovered “mismanagement” of the contract. He said the Department of Housing and Urban Development “did not provide sufficient oversight” that ultimately “cost taxpayers millions of dollars.” The audit also found that the Department of Housing and Urban Development conducted “poor” invoice reviews.
“A detailed review of invoices submitted during the first two months of the contract determined that approximately 80 percent of the payments, or $11 million of the $13.8 million paid, were unsupported and require recovery,” Lander’s office reported.
An investigation into the first two months of the no-bid emergency contract found that DocGo received $1.7 million in taxpayer funds to pay for approximately 10,000 undocumented hotel rooms that sat vacant, with approximately 67% of the funds paid during that same period going to “unauthorized subcontractors” that were not inspected by HPD.
“80 percent of the 189 hotel rooms inspectors visited in New York City and upstate New York had at least one deficiency, and a small number of rooms posed serious health and safety hazards,” the inspector general’s report said. The deficiencies and health hazards included mold, water damage, bugs, pests, and missing microwaves or refrigerators.
“A detailed review of DocGo’s invoices and assets revealed widespread financial mismanagement and poor oversight, including DocGo’s overpayments of $2 million to security subcontractors, the misappropriation of more than $400,000 for expenses on approximately 10,000 unused hotel rooms, and the failure to secure promised social services and casework services. Each failure demonstrates the administration’s failure to adequately vet the company and oversee its operations,” Lander said.
Lander described the hotel conditions and limited access for caseworkers as “just cruel.”
“Thousands of asylum seekers have traveled thousands of miles in search of safety and support as they start their new lives, but instead have encountered pest infestations, inedible food and inadequate services. Our audit shows what we already suspected: DocGo should never have been in the asylum seeker housing business,” Lander said.
A spokesman for the Adams administration said: New York Post Lander and his office are “detail-focused.”[y]We are in the midst of an “unprecedented” crisis.
“In the midst of an unprecedented international humanitarian crisis, city hall staff were called to act swiftly and decisively to rise to this defining moment with compassion and care for others,” the spokesperson said. “Mothers needed formula and health workers needed supplies, so we prioritised people’s health over paperwork.”
“The inspector general can micromanage the first two months of the emergency contract, more than a year after the fact and long after new safeguards have been put in place, but he cannot claim that it saved a single migrant family sleeping on the streets,” the spokesperson continued. “We intend to continue paying our partners who work on behalf of the city, especially during this humanitarian crisis.”
HPD spokesperson Ilana Meyer told the Post, “The report grossly misinterprets the HPD memo and fails to acknowledge facts that do not bolster a politically convenient narrative.”
“HPD officers and their contractors worked around the clock, seven days a week, to ensure safety, shelter and food for the thousands of people who suddenly found themselves on our city’s doorstep. When HPD made decisions quickly, they did so with compassion, and when procedures did not yet exist and documentation was not available at the time, HPD used good judgment rather than risking lives for bureaucratic procedures,” Meier added.
DocGo states:[s] By the quality of our programs.”
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