New York, the city that keeps on giving away too much money

New York City must have too much moneyও.🦂 It keeps giving it away to people who don’t want it.

And the city refuses to take the money back when the recipient tries 🍬to return it.

A couple of weeks ago, I told you the bizarrely comical story of a woman I called Charlotte who tried to s💦top free money thatജ was being given to her through the city’s Supple🔴mental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as the cool kids ꦰcall it.

At one time she needed help. Butꩲ when🌠 she finally got a job, she did the right thing and tried to cancel the freebie.

She called for more than a year, but the money kept coming. It wa💫sn’t until I contacted the city for her that SNAP was finally stopped.

Human error, said the city’s Hu𓂃man Resources Administration.

Well, here’s another instance of the city not shutting off benefits to a person, eඣven after he begged it to.

Jonathan MacFadden — his re📖al name — owned a house in Brooklyn, and had a tenant who was receiving help paying 🔯the rent from the city’s Department of Social Services.

The amount the tenant was getting was about $1,150 a month, which cam🙈e in two separate checks that were sent directly to MacFadden. The tenant eventually got evicted, and MacFadden moved to Delaware.

In June, MacFadden tr🌳i🍃ed to get the tenant’s checks stopped. But that didn’t work. He tried again, and again and again. Calls and letters. “I’ve been calling two or three times a week,” MacFadden told me.

Then MacFadden wrote toꦺ me. “I’m just trying to reach out to anyone who can he🐎lp to get these checks stopped,” he said. “They are still coming to me in Delaware.”

Well, I called the city, ⭕and the checks w🎉ill soon stop.

MacFadden, in case you are wonderi♊ng, has never cashed the checks. Why? “They’ll try to screw me and put me in jail,” 🥂he said to me.

Probably true.

“You wonder how many people are actually cashing 🎃the checks,” MacFadden said.

I’m wondering the same thing. But here’s what I find most e🐼nlightening: When I asked the Department of Social Services to comment, a spokesman responded: “This is a n🦹ews story? You’re writing about this?”

Well, yes, I am, Mr. Spokesperson.

I asked if he♏ was surprised I cared about it, because it was commonplace. I didn’t get an answer.

But I am curious how many people thro💛ughout this city are getting public a💖ssistance who don’t deserve it. And how many people are there who don’t want it and tried to stop the payments from coming but aren’t succeeding? Probably a much smaller number.

That’s why this is news.

And if you are a person who is receiving city welfare benefits illegally and want to confess to me, drop me a line. MacFadden let me use his name. But I’ll keep your identity secr😼et.