Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
Profiteering off the city’s “right to shelter” policies is old news, so it was no surprise last week when a city councilman flagged how the outfit brought in to replace controversial DocGo in offering illegal-migrant services now stands to “earn” over $450 million — even more than DocGo was contracted to collect.
That is: The corruption isn’t about any one contract; it’s baked into the system, and not just with “emergency” migrant services.
Indeed, a Department of Investigation last week flagged the city’s entire $4 billion homeless shelter budget — up from $2.7 billion just two years ago — as ripe for the taking by grifters and the “charity” human-services industrial complex.
No wonder some City Hall aides are under investigation for allegedly influencing city contracts and taking kickbacks: Abuse is endemic to the shelter system.
And without major reform, it was inevitable that the doubling of the city’s shelter “needs,” thanks to the “asylum seeker” influx, would bring a tidal wave of waste, fraud and abuse.
DOI examined 51 nonprofit shelter providers (mainly before the migrant crisis hit) and found that all had at least one major red flag, and several had multiple issues: excessive executive compensation, nepotism and double-dipping.
Twelve CEOs earned annual salaries above $500,000; two nonprofits employed family members of senior staffers; a number of executives had financial stakes in subcontractor services and real estate leased by their agencies.
This, after high-profile de Blasio-era cases exposed massive problems that the City Council has never bothered to address (because it’s too busy handcuffing cops and so on).
In 2021, feds arrested and charged Victor Rivera, the founder of the Bronx Parents Housing Network, who later pleaded guilty to bribery charges.
That year, a Post investigation found Brooklyn-based CORE Services CEO Jack Brown at the center of lucrative transactions involving the nonprofit and affiliated for-profit companies.
Despite this sorry recent history, the Department of Homeless Services has only managed to implement a handful of reforms since DOI’s 2021 Report.
The continued gaps in oversight by the city — as contracts are spread over multiple agencies — open the door wide for grifters to exploit taxpayers.
It’s surely grown worse as the city rushes to sign “emergency” contracts (in the third year of the migrant mess) without even the pretense of a competitive-bidding process.
DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber warns that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” but no powerbroker in city government seems to care about preventing these ripoffs.