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 Eric 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 the DocGo’s lack of expertise and other controversies, which include allegations of mistreatment of migrants against the company.
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 verbal 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 prior 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.
The operation of the site is expected to go out for bidding after the contract expires in September.
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 massive contract to handle asylum seekers upstate and in parts of the city, which lawmakers had been told included the Austell Place site.
“It’s all news to me,” said Council member Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) when told about the deal.
Brewer has held up DocGo as an example of where emergency no-bid contracting powers can go awry last summer in the wake of the mistreatment accusations against the firm and allegations it served terrible yet pricey meals to migrants that ended up in dumpsters.
“What I feel angry about is we were told no more emergency contacts and here we are giving money to a for-profit company, not from New York, instead of a non-profit,” she said.
The city had relied heavily on emergency contracting, powers that were authorized by Lander’s office in the early days of the migrant crisis to allow the administration to quickly strike deals to care for the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who had come to the Big Apple.
But since last fall, in response to the blowback over DocGo, the administration has said it has tried to shift away from those contracts and vowed to put more out for public bidding to score more competitive pricing.
“The city is filing this emergency contract with the Comptroller’s Office to pay the vendor for nine months of previously provided and approved services at this site and on-going services for just another three months, after which the site will be managed by a vendor selected through a competitive process,” said City Hall spokesperson William Fowler.
