NYC’s flaccid free-condom program needs to grow again, critics say
City Health Department officials should get on the stick and start providing randy New Yorkers with free condoms again, critics say.
The department’s rubber shortage has existed for about a year — reportedly because of high demand — prompting its flaccid performance to become the butt of jokes and condemnation, including on a new Instagram account called Hack NY.
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While the site had been positively plugging free government programs as a public service, it recently posted a video skit featuring Big Apple comedian Ayanna Dookie and Aaron Cohen, an actor with OldJewishMen, targeting the rubberless Department of Health.
The video shows Dookie waking up startled when she sees the older Cohen sleeping next to her, with her character ending up pregnant.
“This could have been avoided,” the clip’s narrator says. “New York City is supposed to be giving out free condoms, but they’re in short supply.
“Comment to tell them that we need more [condoms] before you make your next mistake.”
New York City residents who currently go to the DOH’s web site for free condoms are greeted with this message: “Due to an overwhelming initial response we have exhausted our inventory far sooner than anticipated.
“We hope to be back up and running shortly – stay tuned and we will see you soon!” the department promises.
The DOH includes a “free condom” map showing the groups and businesses it claims to have distributed free condoms to.
But Hack NY said it made random calls to the groups and found that only 33% of the organizations listed on the site had free condoms.
Hack NY also asked the Health Department when condoms would be back in full supply, and the agency didn’t provide a timeline or answer about the accuracy of its free-condom supply map.
Matt Wing, a co-founder of Hack NY, said the site decided to pivot to criticizing a city agency “given that our vet of this one came up short.
“We decided to pivot to encouraging viewers to call out DOH for the shortage in hopes they will feel motivated to increase supply,” Wing told The Post.
Anyone who comments on the condom videos posted on Instagram gets a direct message with links to an auto-populated tweet tagging the Health Department.
The Health Department and Mayor Eric Adams’ office declined to comment to The Post.
But the mayor’s preliminary management report released in January said “safer-sex products” including condom distribution, plummeted 21 percent for the first four months of fiscal year 2025 compared to 2024.
“This is due to delays in registering the purchase order (PO) for the NYC Condom Availability Program’s new safer-sex product vendor,” the report said. “Regular monthly distribution resumed at higher levels at the end of September 2024, when the PO was registered.”
The Health Department told Hack_NY it’s in the process of securing a new vendor for the purchase and distribution of condoms and other safer-sex products and is limiting orders to 300 condoms and lubricant packets combined per order per month.
The city unveiled its own “NYC” brand of free condoms in 2007 under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg – in packets with a variety of colors representing the different subway lines.
The Big Apple first started providing male condoms in the city’s sexually transmitted disease health clinics in 1971 and were distributed in public high schools in 1991.
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