Poor, inedible food for NY asylum seekers? Contractor vows to get new suppliers after outcry

Chris McKenna, New York State Team
Updated ·5 min read
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ARDSLEY - Asylum seekers living in New York hotels say the food provided to them is unappetizing and in some cases inedible, with one woman saying her meal left her sickened and bedridden for days.

For migrants New York City placed at Ardsley Acres Hotel Court, a Westchester County motel off the Saw Mill River Parkway, meals have been a dismal affair, involving frozen, cellophane-covered trays of food they have to heat up in their hotel rooms. Prevented by federal law from legally working, they have no choice but to eat what they're given.

One woman, a Peruvian mother who traveled to the U.S. with her 23-year-old daughter, told the USA Today Network in an interview on Tuesday that one meal left her sick in bed for three days, too scared to go to a hospital because of her uncertain immigration status.

Wilson Martinez, 25, is an asylum seeker who arrived in the United States from his native Venezuala in May and has been living at the Ardsley Acres Motel with his wife and eight-month old son for two months. Martinez, photographed Aug. 22, 2023, says that he and other asylum seekers at the motel are being fed frozen food that is very often low quality.

Wilson Martinez, a 25-year-old migrant from Venezuela, said in an interview that he and his wife were served hot meals at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City after they arrived there with their baby son, just five days after crossing into the U.S.

But at the Ardsley motel, where they were bused two months ago, all the meals come frozen, including the scrambled eggs and meat patty provided every morning, Martinez said, speaking in Spanish through a translator. Once the food is warmed, he said, it is often too distasteful to eat.

An asylum seeker staying at Ardsley Acres Hotel Court took this photo of a lunch he was provided at the hotel recently.
An asylum seeker staying at Ardsley Acres Hotel Court took this photo of a lunch he was provided at the hotel recently.

Similar complaints have arisen at other hotels where the city has bused more than 2,100 migrants since May. DocGo, the contractor that's being paid $432 million to house and feed them, now promises to do better, telling the USA Today Network in a statement that it's getting feedback from migrants in its care and will seek new food suppliers at each shelter site that offer "culturally appropriate options."

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DocGo's statement defended the fare served at Ardsley Acres as "sufficient and nutritionally sound."

But Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner, who has been pressing DocGo to switch vendors for the roughly 90 migrants living there, said a company executive conceded to him this week that the food was "subpar" and that he planned to improve the meals at all of DocGo's locations.

"He's trying to rectify the quality of food all over," he said.

A photo of a meal NYC contractor DocGo says was recently served to asylum seekers at Ardsley Acres Hotel Court in Westchester County.
A photo of a meal NYC contractor DocGo says was recently served to asylum seekers at Ardsley Acres Hotel Court in Westchester County.

Feiner was thrilled this week that those plans appeared to be moving forward. He announced in a press release that DocGo agreed to find a new vendor for Ardsley Acres, offering $11 per meal and suggesting Latin American dishes and Halal food for Muslim migrants. Interested food suppliers were urged contact to Feiner.

So far, more than a dozen caterers had done so, Feiner told the USA Today Network on Wednesday.

Migrant men living at two hotels in the Orange County town of Newburgh also are served frozen meals. Kevindaryan Lujan, a county legislator who has been helping those asylum seekers, said the men's inability to get federal work permits is perhaps their biggest frustration.

Families of asylum seekers are led into the Ramada hotel in Yonkers May 15, 2023. The families were being housed in New York City.
Families of asylum seekers are led into the Ramada hotel in Yonkers May 15, 2023. The families were being housed in New York City.

But after that is the poor or unfamiliar food.

"It has been a source of contention from the beginning," he said.

Jorge, 43, and Renny, 22, both from Venezuela, are two of the dozens of asylum seekers that were brought from New York City to the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh. Both men, photographed outside the hotel May 31, 2023, said that they had to flee their home country because of danger faced by themselves and their families had they stayed. Jorge left a wife and two daughters behind.

Other complaints about DocGo's performance

DocGo, a medical services company based in Manhattan, has faced a bevy of complaints about its handling of asylum seekers, including reports of inadequate access to medical care and legal services and failing to coordinate with local nonprofits.

The New York Times reported Monday that state Attorney General Letitia James was investigating if DocGo had misled asylum seekers about work opportunities and enrolled them in health plans they didn't qualify for, among other potential problems.

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In an interview published Tuesday, DocGo CEO Anthony Capone told the TV station NY1 that his company relies on outside vendors for food, security and case work, each guided by a DocGo policy manual. According to a public relations firm representing DocGo, Capone's company provides services at 37 emergency sites for migrants across the state - including 13 outside New York City.

Many of the shelter sites have been launched on short notice because of the urgency, Capone said, suggesting that unavoidable haste has led to initial problems.

A big challenge for the company in feeding thousands of asylum seekers is the wide variety of tastes they bring from far-flung homelands. They all crossed the southern U.S. border but hail from several continents, from countries in Central and South America to African nations such as Mauritania, as well as Russia and Ukraine.

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Local volunteers step up to aid migrants

In each community outside the city where migrants have been placed — hotels in seven counties, stretching from Yonkers to Buffalo — networks of welcoming volunteers, nonprofits, immigrant advocacy groups and donors have jumped in to fill voids in services.

Members of the Greenburgh Town Hall Summer Internship Program, listen as Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who represents New YorkÕs 17th Congressional District, speaks at Macy Park in Ardsley Aug. 15, 2023 about issues facing asylum seekers, and especially those who have been sent from New York City to Westchester County. Members of the Greenburgh internship program have been volunteering to assist asylum seekers who are being housed at the Ardsley Acres Motel.

That includes delivering food donations, gift cards and bicycles, and offering English classes. Some 46 student interns working at Greenburgh Town Hall this summer have made a project of it, pitching in with English lessons, organizing a picnic that 150 migrants attended last week and holding a three-day food drive that concluded on Monday.

They held a press conference with Rep. Jamaal Bowman and others after the picnic at an Ardsley park, largely to urge the federal government to speed work authorizations for asylum seekers. But they also called attention to the poor food at the Ardsley motel, which they said had left migrants "sick and hungry."

"These folks are going to be here for a while, so we can't let up in our support and our care," Ardsley Mayor Nancy Kaboolian said at the press conference. "We need to continue to stay on top of this situation, and look to the future for what they need. ... I want the Ardsley location to be the model of how this country should treat people seeking shelter in the United States."

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY asylum seekers contractor DocGo under fire for providing poor food