11/25/2021
Nov. 25, 2021
Ilona here.
Last night, on Thanksgiving Eve, Seasoned Evolution of Kingston, NY delivered hot, fresh cooked turkey dinners to about 800 of the Hudson Valley’s forgotten souls – families warehoused in seedy motels, the homebound frail and elderly, the homeless, the unhoused.
Next Thanksgiving, will the need be even greater?
The question is not rhetorical. Evictions are likely to rise, perhaps precipitously, in New York State next year. Albany paid a company called Guidehouse to distribute federal $$ destined for New York tenants and landlords. But to date, less than half the money has reached landlords, and applications are still pouring in. Listeners to our It Turns Out… Oct. 28 ERAP episode know the reasons.
What would happen if Guidehouse and not Seasoned Evolution was delivering Thanksgiving dinners to the poor?
The Guidehouse turkey meal contract would contain no requirements that dinners reach recipients, much less on Thanksgiving Day. Meals might be sitting in a warehouse, if they were even prepared, that is. With luck, they would be frozen and safe to eat upon delivery in January or February or perhaps even March, after roads were clear.
Warehouse employees might confirm the food was there, while others would say, no, the warehouse never received documentation that meals had been delivered. And that might be true, because there would be no paper bills of lading, only computer records that might have vanished in the ether. Guidehouse would have subcontracted different parts of food prep to other companies, but their identities would be concealed. Perhaps company XYZ would peel potatoes. Guidehouse would be charging upwards of $300 an hour for a supervisor to oversee the peelings, while peelers were paid minimum wage. Guidehouse might send stuffing detail to a neighboring state, say Pennsylvania, where minimum wage is $7.25. Turkeys? Chicken would do instead, because boilerplate is good enough, and chicken is America’s boilerplate meal.
And in January or February, or perhaps even March, there might be no one to deliver to, because the recipients might have been evicted.
Sounds dystopian, right? But that’s what’s happening with the $2.4 billion rental assistance program in New York State and other states where the private equity/consultant industrial complex is spinning its revolving door with government officials.
If you haven’t done so yet, please listen to our Oct. 28 ERAP episode, or if you don’t have time, please read the transcript.
Meanwhile, perhaps we should put Seasoned Evolution in charge of more programs, because unlike Guidehouse, they deliver timely to those in need.
Happy Thanksgiving.
