It takes money to make money, as the old saying goes, and apparently, it also takes money — as much as $53 million — to give money away.
Earlier this month, The Post broke the story that Mayor Eric Adams is giving out pre-paid cash cards to migrants.
Unusually for the mayor, Adams didn’t publicize this story himself, and his administration for nearly a month has failed to correct several public misperceptions about it.
One misperception is that the program allows the city to give out just $50 million to migrants.
No wonder the mayor has been reticent.
This debit card program — if you read the actual contract — has the potential to become an open-ended, multibillion-dollar Bermuda Triangle of disappearing, untraceable cash, used for any purpose.
It will give migrants up to $10,000 each in taxpayer money with no ID check, no restrictions and no fraud control.
Why give out debit cards?
When The Post exposed the mayor’s debit card program earlier this month, the mayor’s office spun it as a money-saving program, to solve a problem: Migrants staying in hotels don’t eat all their food.--->READ MORE HERE
A family of four migrants with two children under age 17 could get $15,200 a year under the Big Apple’s controversial new $53 million program to dole out pre-paid credit cards to asylum seekers, The Post has learned.
Details of the Immediate Response Card initiative have been scant ever since The Post reported earlier this month that the city had inked the multi-million contract with New Jersey banking company Mobility Capital Finance to dish out the taxpayer funds to asylum seekers to help them buy food.
Facing scrutiny, the city’s department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) insisted Tuesday that the $53 million will both cover fees and other expenses for the bank — known as MoCaFi — as well as the cash being dished out to migrants as part of a one-year pilot program.
City officials gave The Post a breakdown chart of exactly how much asylum seeker families stand to receive under the program — ranging from $345 a month for a single migrant to $2,203 per month for a family of eight.
A family of three could receive $932 per month, while a family of four could net a $1,195 allowance per month to use at bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores, according to the breakdown.
The monthly amounts increase for those who have children: $100 a month for those with kids under 5 and $36 for those with children aged 5 to 17 years.
A pregnant asylum seeker can also receive an additional $36 per month on the pre-paid cards, per the city’s cost chart.
A start date has yet to be set for the program, which will initially roll out to 500 newly arrived families at the Roosevelt Hotel — but could expand to include a maximum of 6,500 families if it proves successful, officials said.
The city didn’t provide an exact make-up of the 500 families that are to be included in the pilot, or say how many individuals would be included in that group. --->READ MORE HERE
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