ASYLUM $NEAK ERS
Controversial firm gets $41M city contract
DocGo — the controversial COVID-testing-turned-migrant-shelter firm — quietly nabbed a nearly $41 million no-bid contract with the Adams administration to run a massive asylum-seeker site in Queens, The Post has learned.
The dodgy company has been managing one of the city’s largest migrant shelter sites at Austell Place in Long Island City since September under a one-year emergency deal that runs through the fall, according to previously unreported public records.
The opening of the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center (HERRC) was touted by Mayor Adams’ administration last year as taking an innovative approach to the asylum-seeker crisis by turning an empty office building into a 2,400-bed shelter site.
Notably missing from the Sept. 6, 2023, announcement was any mention of DocGo — which had its separate $432 million migrant housing and care contract rejected by the city comptroller’s office that same day. Comptroller Brad Lander, in rejecting that contract, cited DocGo’s lack of expertise and other controversies, including allegations of mistreatment of migrants.
Queens Councilwoman Julie Won skewered the newly reported agreement as “unacceptable.”
“It’s really hard to justify the cost for how the men are treated,” said Won, who recounted horror stories from migrants, who said they were treated like “cattle” and forced to use feces-covered restrooms at the site. “That’s the problem with our emergent contract, we are allowing people to get away with robbery.”
City Hall said it made a handshake deal with DocGo to run the LIC HERRC site last summer, before Lander stripped the administration of its power to strike emergency deals with migrant services contractors without approval.
While DocGo has been handling services at the site for the last nine months, the contract was just finalized Thursday so City Hall could cut the company its check, according to the administration and public documents.
DocGo did not return requests for comment.
News of DocGo’s involvement in the HERRC comes a month after the administration said it was moving away from the company by not renewing its contract to handle asylum-seekers upstate and in parts of the city, which lawmakers had been told included the Austell Place site.