City Hospital System Takes on Migrant Emergency — With Blank Check From Mayor; NYC Hospitals Spending More Than $90M to House Migrants in Midtown Hotels

City Hospital System Takes on Migrant Emergency — With Blank Check From Mayor:

A newly unveiled memo details unusual and obscure arrangement for more than $100 million in spending on hotels and health care.

Mayor Eric Adams has handed to the city’s public hospital system control of emergency relief operations for asylum seekers, an internal city memo reveals — bypassing standard oversight procedures for government contracts while spending nearly $100 million on hotel rooms.

An Oct. 13, 2022, memorandum of understanding between City Hall and the New York City Health + Hospitals Corporation — posted to the nyc.gov website in response to THE CITY’s inquiries — details procedures for what Adams calls Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers, or HERRCs.

“H+H shall be responsible for the management and operation of the HERRCs,” the memo states. For its part, City Hall committed to reimburse H+H for the costs of building and operating the centers, which also include the now-dismantled barracks-style shelter at Randall’s Island and a space at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook.

It is signed on behalf of H+H by Dr. Ted Long, a senior vice president who heads the city’s COVID testing and treatment operation. Signing on behalf of the mayor was Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom.

Health + Hospitals board meeting materials show that H+H President and CEO Mitchell Katz last fall authorized more than $92 million in spending on Manhattan hotels through spring 2023: $40 million for ROW nyc, $20 million for the Watson, $28 million for the Stewart and $5.8 million for the Wolcott.

H+H is also paying to use a Holiday Inn in Lower Manhattan, as revealed in the ongoing bankruptcy case of the hotel’s operator. That HERRC opened earlier this month.
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Huron Consulting Services, LLC — a firm that was also involved in H+H’s COVID testing operations — is getting up to $18.5 million to help open the migrant housing sites. Rapid Reliable Testing, LLC, got approved for an $11.5 million contract for medical triage. —>READ MORE HERE

NYC hospitals spending more than $90M to house migrants in Midtown hotels:

The Big Apple’s public hospital system plans to spend more than $90 million to house migrants in four Midtown Manhattan hotels through the spring in response to President Biden’s border crisis, The Post has learned.

NYC Health + Hospitals CEO Mitchell Katz has approved $40 million in payments to the four-star Row NYC near Times Square and $28 million to the four-star Stewart Hotel across from Madison Square Garden, according to documents first reported by The City.

Last month, The Post revealed workers at the Row were throwing out nearly a ton of food daily because the migrants living there wouldn’t eat it.

Whistleblowing hotel employee Felipe Rodriguez also alleged that the once-trendy hotel — formerly known as the Milford Plaza, which advertised itself as the “Lullaby of Broadway” — had turned into a “free-for-all” of sex, drugs and violence.

Another $20 million is going to the Watson Hotel on West 57th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, where a group of migrants recently staged a protest against being relocated to a shelter in Brooklyn, and $5.8 million to the historic Wolcott Hotel on West 31st Street. —>READ MORE HERE

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