In the latest episode of “Big Apple Innovations,” Mayor Eric Adams and team are rolling out the red carpet for migrant families with a splashy new feature: pre-paid credit cards! Yes, you heard that right. Amid the hustle and bustle of New York City, a whopping $53 million pilot program is being launched to give a warm welcome to families seeking asylum, helping them to dine and shop like true New Yorkers.
Here’s the scoop: The administration has teamed up with the New Jersey-based company, Mobility Capital Finance (affectionately known as MoCaFi), to sprinkle a little financial fairy dust on families staying at the iconic Roosevelt Hotel. The goal? To make sure these newcomers can hit the local bodegas, grocery stores, and supermarkets to pick up some grub and baby essentials. The catch? Just a pinky promise (in the form of an affidavit) that the dough will be dedicated to food and baby supplies only.
Think of it as a food stamp program with a Big City twist. Each card’s balance will be as varied as the city’s skyline, depending on family size and income. Picture this: a family of four could find themselves with about $1,000 to splurge on meals every month. That’s $35 a day to explore the culinary cosmos of NYC! And just like the city itself, these cards are set for a refill every 28 days.
This isn’t the city’s first rodeo with such a snazzy solution. Last year, residents in city housing got a taste of this generous gesture with cards of their own to feast on holiday dinners. MoCaFi’s CEO, Wole Coaxum, is all in, aiming to dish out a slice of financial inclusion to those usually left out of the banking banquet, all while giving the local economy a bit of a boost.
If this pilot program hits the high notes, it could roll out to all 15,000 migrant families currently calling hotel rooms their homes, according to city officials. And here’s the cherry on top: this scheme could save the city over $600,000 a month. That’s a lot of bagels and lox!
Feeding the migrant families has been a bit of a pickle, with the city previously dropping around $11 per meal. The taste buds of folks from diverse backgrounds weren’t exactly doing the happy dance with the meals provided. Some asylum seekers, missing a taste of home, even turned their hotel rooms into makeshift kitchens to whip up something palatable. And then there was the uneaten meal fiasco with DocGo, spilling the beans on the need for a more appetizing approach.
Hot on the heels of this foodie freedom card announcement, the city is also checking into more hotel rooms, securing over 750 spaces for asylum-seeking families. It’s all part of NYC’s grand plan to host over 66,000 asylum seekers, a move that’s brewing a storm in the city’s budget teacup with an estimated cost of $10 billion through 2025.
So, as the city gears up to distribute these culinary compass cards, it’s clear that NYC is not just a melting pot of cultures but also a test kitchen for innovative solutions to global challenges. Whether these cards will be the secret ingredient to a smoother integration for migrant families remains to be seen. But one thing’s for sure: in the city that never sleeps, even the most pressing problems find a way to order in.
