How About Sharing With Homeless Veterans?

On Friday, Breitbart reported the following:

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) is expanding his program that rewards newly arrived migrants with pre-loaded debit cards for food — paid for by New Yorkers who remain some of the most tax-burdened residents of the United States.

Adams started the debit cards-for-migrants program in February, noting that it would cost about $53 million to provide roughly 500 migrant families with the prepaid cards meant only for food. The program came even as a study recently found that 56 percent of New Yorkers live near the poverty line.

According to The New York Times:

The debit cards are expected to be distributed to more than 7,300 migrants over the next six months at a cost of about $2.6 million, city officials said, building from a pilot program that began earlier this year with roughly 900 families, or nearly 3,000 migrants. [Emphasis added]…

With more than 60,000 migrants currently in the city’s care, the program — which is expanding from three hotels to 17 — could serve about 1,230 people per month, or roughly 2 percent of the total migrant population. [Emphasis added]

The program is part of a contract with Mobility Capital Finance, known as MoCaFi, that could eventually cost the city as much as $53 million, with as much as $2 million going to the company and the rest being distributed to families, city officials said. Under the pilot program, a family of four with young children received about $350 per week for a month. [Emphasis added]

I don’t want anyone to go without food, but why can’t we just send them home since we can’t afford them?

Hotels are being paid to house the illegals. Again, why weren’t hotels being paid to house homeless veterans?

Misplaced Priorities

On Monday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about plans to turn the  the former Chelsea Soldiers’ Home facility into a migrant shelter. The building has been vacant and scheduled for demolition, but the state now plans to re-open it beginning May 1.

The article reports:

Democrat Governor Maura Healey revealed the government will turn the former Chelsea Soldiers’ Home facility, which is vacant and scheduled for demolition, into a safety-net site in April.

It will be able to accommodate 100 families who are eligible for the state’s Emergency Assistance family shelter system, which has been operating at capacity for months. 

Residents of the Bay State, however, are furious that the former veteran housing facility is being turned into migrant shelter when on a single night in 2023 there were 545 veterans experiencing homelessness in Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Local Dick McGrath said on Facebook: ‘Is it me, or is there something wrong with putting migrants in the Chelsea Soldiers Home instead of homeless veterans?’

The article also notes:

Mike Junior said: ‘They were supposed to tear that building down but let’s put migrants in there, not our own soldiers, not our own people, not the ones who FOUGHT for OUR FREEDOM.’

Blake Habyan said on Twitter: ‘Illegals are being prioritized over American citizens. Who will they take away from next?’

Secretary of Veterans Services Dr. Jon Santiago insisted transforming the site will not affect services for veterans. 

Massachusetts has proven that we can take care of veterans and families experiencing homelessness in our state,’ said Santiago.

‘While EOVS formerly operated the building slated for demolition, this project operates independently and will not impact the daily routines or services at the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea.’

Wait a minute. How can transforming the site not impact services for veterans? If there are more than 500 homeless veterans in Massachusetts on one night, why isn’t the building being put to use for them? It will impact the daily routines or services at the Massachusetts Veterans Home at Chelsea because the migrants are not vetted in any way and there will be safety concerns.

At Some Point There Will Be A Tipping Point

On Friday, The New York Post posted the following headline:

Homeless vets are being booted from NY hotels to make room for migrants: advocates

The article reports:

Nearly two dozen struggling homeless veterans have been booted from upstate hotels to make room for migrants, says a nonprofit group that works with the vets.

The ex-military — including a 24-year-old man in desperate need of help after serving in Afghanistan — were told by the hotels at the beginning of the week that their temporary housing was getting pulled out from under them at the establishments and that they’d have to move on to another spot, according to the group and a sickened local pol.

“Our veterans have been placed in another hotel due to what’s going on with the immigrants,’’ said Sharon Toney-Finch, the CEO of the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation.

Toney-Finch, a disabled military veteran, created YIT to raise awareness of premature births, as well as helping the homeless and low-income military service veterans in need of living assistance.

The article notes:

Toney-Finch said she believes it all comes down to money.

“They want to get paid’’ more, she said of the hotels, referring to what her group shells out to get the vets housing compared to what the city is paying for each migrant.

“That’s so unfair, because at the end of the day, we are a small nonprofit, and we do pay $88 a day for a veteran to be there,” she said.

While it’s unclear what the city is paying upstate, various reported deals between the Big Apple and Manhattan hotels have called for payments such as $190 a night part of an estimated $4.3 billion migrant price tag for taxpayers through spring 2024.

At some point, as the American people become more aware of the actions of our current administration, they will vote the people responsible for this sort of reprehensible action out of office.