The city of New York spent $3.3 million on empty rooms at a Rockland County hotel where it planned to house asylum seekers but never did, and the payments remained for eight months last year, according to invoices obtained by the USA Today Network this week.
That bill to taxpayers is four times higher than the amount originally reported Monday, which was based on a two-month audit by City Treasurer Brad Lander’s office. In response to a USA Today Network request for public records, Lander’s office provided invoices showing the city continued to pay for unused rooms at the Armoni Inn & Suites through December – months after court orders blocked the city’s plans for the hotel.
The bills were submitted by DocGo, a medical services company that booked the hotel on Route 303 in Orangeburg after being hired to help the city house and care for a steady influx of migrants. DocGo kept a whopping $1.3 million of the Armoni Inn’s $3.3 million cost as allowable profit; the other $1.9 million went to the hotel’s owners.
The city’s Department of Housing and Development oversaw the contract with DocGo and paid the Armoni Inn’s bills. In a statement Tuesday evening, a spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams defended the payments, saying the city faces a “turbulent, ever-changing” migrant crisis with unpredictable shelter needs at any given time and legal challenges outside the city.
“We will continue to pay our partners for the work they do on behalf of the city and make responsible, cost-effective decisions related to this national humanitarian crisis,” said Deputy Press Secretary Liz Garcia.
DocGo Audit: NYC spent $833,000 on empty rooms at the Rockland Hotel, which was originally intended for asylum seekers, an audit found
In a separate statement, a DocGo spokesman said the company continued to bill the Armoni Inn because the city’s HPD and Adams’ office required it to do so. Amid a housing shortage, city officials wanted to keep as many hotel rooms as possible available for a steady flow of asylum seekers, he said.
“At the request of HPD and City Hall, we continued to reserve rooms to be prepared for new arrivals,” the statement said. “This included reserving blocks of rooms at the Armoni Hotel, where a temporary restraining order prevented the admission of new guests. Our client told us how important it was to keep as much potential emergency capacity free as possible, including the rooms that are the subject of the temporary restraining order lawsuit.”
Rockland keeps migrants away from hotels New law in Rockland supports efforts to prevent New York City from housing asylum seekers in county hotels
How much were the hotel payments for NYC?
The payments to the Armoni Inn came to light last week in a report from Lander’s office on DocGo’s May and June 2023 spending it examined. The audit found a number of problems, but perhaps the most striking was that the city paid a total of $1.7 million for empty rooms at eight hotels.
In most cases, this happened because the city began paying DocGo for rooms several days before migrants were allowed to stay. The situation was different with the Armoni Inn: first, the stay was blocked by a court order in May 2023 and then by an injunction the following month, leaving the city unable to accommodate a single person in that hotel.
The audit revealed payments to the Armoni Inn totaling $833,340 for May and June. But that was just the beginning, according to invoices obtained by the USA Today Network. According to the documents, DocGo continued to issue invoices for 84 unused rooms at the hotel through Dec. 27.
Lander, who has launched a campaign to run against Adams in next year’s Democratic primary, sharply criticized his administration in a statement Tuesday for its handling of the DocGo contract.
“My office has repeatedly raised alarms about the Adams administration’s rush to contract with DocGo, and our audit has confirmed that the city’s haphazard management ultimately wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on DocGo,” Lander said, citing empty space fees and $2 million in unapproved security spending. “Each misstep demonstrates that the administration failed to adequately audit the company or oversee its work.”
Why has NYC never housed asylum seekers in the hotel?
The city was never able to move asylum seekers into the 171-room Armoni Inn because both Rockland County and Orangetown authorities filed suit to block the plans, obtaining court orders that remain in effect today while the cases are pending.
In total, DocGo contacted more than 700 hotels to increase the number of accommodation options for migrants in the city, but the company found only 39 hotels that were “willing and able to work with us,” the company spokesperson said in the emailed statement.
“Booking rooms at short notice for thousands of people coming to the city involves countless complexities, from overhead costs, technology systems and rapid deployment costs to the nuances of regional market rates,” he said. “These costs are included in the flat fee we charged the city.”
Under the contract with DocGo, the city agreed to pay the company $170 per night for each hotel room booked, allowing DocGo to keep any money above the hotel room rate. That meant a profit of $70 for every $100 per night room at the unused Armoni Inn—a total of $1.3 million over eight months.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at [email protected].
