City health care contractor DocGo is laying off 360 employees from five New York hotels and commercial buildings where New York City is winding down emergency shelter programs, according to a notice made public by the state Department of Labor on Friday.
The Midtown-based health care company is shutting down its operations to provide health and social services to migrants in Manhattan at the Roosevelt Hotel, the Watson Hotel, the Stewart Hotel and at a mixed-use Times Square building. In Brooklyn, DocGo is pulling out of a complex of warehouse buildings in Clinton Hill that the city had converted to emergency migrant shelters.
The Roosevelt Hotel was cited by the Trump administration in mid-February when it seized $80.5 million from New York City’s bank accounts claiming that the money was being used to shelter migrants in luxury hotels, according to city officials. The money had been awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency under a 2023 program that reimburses localities for immigration-related expenses. Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has threatened to sue to reclaim the funds and announced at the end of February that it would close the Roosevelt Hotel.
DocGo began to lay off workers at the multiple sites as of March 8, with the facilities’ closures expected to unfold on a rolling basis through June 24, according to the company’s plans filed with the state Department of Labor. The company said the layoffs follow the Adams administration’s plans to close emergency shelters that it rapidly opened over the last two years. City officials have argued that there is no longer a critical need for such facilities as the number of asylum seekers entering the five boroughs continues to decline.
“DocGo recently made adjustments to its workforce due to the scaling down of migrant-related work in New York, and we continue to work closely with our partners to meet their needs,” the company told Crain’s in a statement.
The city had already planned to scale back its relationship with DocGo. Last year the city declined to renew the provider’s $432 million, no-bid migrant services contract that expired on May 5. DocGo, and a separate contractor, Garner Environmental Services, has provided interim services to migrants while the city searched for a new provider to take over the work.
DocGo has been beset by controversy over the last couple of years. In a July 2023 New York Times report, migrants in DocGo’s care said they had been misled to believe the company would help them find work and that they had endured threats from the company’s hired security teams. Meanwhile, DocGo CEO Anthony Capone resigned in September 2023 after the Albany Times Union revealed he had misrepresented his college education.
Investors in the company filed a class-action lawsuit against the firm in October 2023, seeking to recoup losses suffered after the company’s stock fell after the negative news coverage.
As of Friday, DocGo’s stock was priced at $2.82 a share, down a stunning 49% from just a month ago at $5.54 in February. The company’s stock was at a high of $10.82 in October 2022.
