NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams vowed to tackle homelessness on New York City’s subway system on Friday with an ambitious new plan that will rely, in part, on more funding from the state for shelter and medical treatment.
Standing next to Gov. Kathy Hochul at the Fulton Street station in Lower Manhattan, Adams announced the plan will involve sending teams of cops, mental health workers and homeless services specialists throughout the transit system to engage — and, in some cases, remove — people in need of help.
“You can’t put a Band-Aid on a cancerous sore. That is not how you solve the problem,” he said as he stood flanked by several top city and state officials. “You must remove the cancer and start the healing process.”
Adams promised that his approach “is not about arresting people,” but “about arresting a problem.”
Rules of conduct will now be strictly enforced, though, he noted, saying that the NYPD would no longer turn a blind eye to riders who smoke, get high or flop on trains and in subway stations.
“No more smoking, no more doing drugs, no more sleeping, no more doing barbeques on the subway system. No more just doing whatever you want,” Adams said. “No. Those days are over.”
The city, he added, will also be taking a more aggressive approach to homeless people who use trains and stations as shelter.
“There’s one case where a woman has been living under a stairway in the system for months. This is not acceptable,” he said. “That is not dignity. That is disgusting. And that’s not who we are as a city.”
For decades, local and state officials, as well as homeless advocates, have been confounded with how to provide help to homeless people — many of whom are mentally ill or struggling with substance dependence — who refuse to accept it. They’re also afraid to sleep in the city’s congregate shelters, which often prove to be dangerous themselves.
To address those fears, as well as people’s mental health needs, Hochul said she’s proposing $27.5 million in additional funding for psychiatric beds statewide, $12 million more for supportive housing beds and a $10 billion plan to shore up hospitals and the state’s health care workforce.
Hochul also plans to increase the state reimbursement to hospitals and other health care providers by 10% when addressing long-term mental health needs. She called on the federal government to do likewise and bring the total reimbursement for such services up to 20%.
While a dearth of beds has undoubtedly been a problem over the years, so has the inability to convince people to come in off the streets. To reverse that trend, Hochul said the state will clarify guidelines around when someone is a danger to themselves or others, and when that warrants them being institutionalized and receiving treatment.
“We need to talk about what’s involved in removal and involuntary commitment for the highest need individuals, individuals who truly have demonstrated they’re not capable of taking care of themselves,” she said. “We need to issue regulations that’ll give those who witness this behavior, those who are in the subways, the law enforcement ... the experts — give them more authority to take some steps to get people out of those circumstances and into a place so they could begin the healing. And this is long overdue.”
Dr. Ann Marie Sullivan, the state’s mental health commissioner, said the new and more transparent standards for involuntary commitment would be issued to emergency rooms and hospitals. Doctors would ultimately decide whether someone requires hospitalization.
“We have commitment laws in New York State. They are good commitment laws,” she said. “It’s the way that you look at the laws, and I think you can interpret these laws with a little more room, and there’s case law to support that.”
Part of his plan would also involve revisiting and possibly expanding Kendra’s Law, which allows for court-ordered outpatient treatment.
While Adams and Hochul framed the new subways plan as an act of practical compassion, others were quick to criticize it, or at least parts of it.
A deputy executive policy director with the Coalition for the Homeless, Shelly Nortz, called the plan a repeat of already failed police-based outreach strategies and slammed Adams for the “cancer” analogy he used.
“They are human beings,” she said. “We urge great caution with respect to any regulatory or statutory expansion of involuntary commitment or outpatient treatment standards, including Kendra’s Law. Current statutes provide ample legal authority to transport and involuntarily hospitalize those who endanger themselves or others. Expansion of the legal criteria will not solve the problem.”
But Nortz also noted she was “pleased” to learn that 600 psychiatric beds used to treat COVID-19 were being restored as part of the plan.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Comptroller Brad Lander both praised some aspects of the plan, but voiced criticisms as well.
Speaker Adams noted that while “there are parts of the mayor’s subway safety plan that seem positive,” other aspects — like NYPD enforcement of MTA rules of conduct — “need to be examined in greater detail.”
“We need to be very careful that those efforts aren’t counterproductive by criminalizing people who are in need of housing or treatment,” she said.
Lander also bristled at parts of the plan that involve the police department.
“There is little evidence to suggest that increasing the presence of police officers in our subways will meaningfully break the cycle of homelessness, hospitalization, & incarceration,” he said in a tweet. “These are anxious times—but we can’t allow our fears to lead us to violate civil rights and fill up our jails with people who need services, not cells. All New Yorkers in our public transit system deserve to feel safe.”
Tony Utano, the president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, praised Adams’ announcement and said he hopes Hizzoner and the governor will successfully remove riders who push around large shopping carts.
The carts were formally banned from the system in 2020 after train operator Garrett Goble was burned to death after a homeless rider lit a shopping cart on fire. Goble was overcome by smoke in the fire as he helped usher riders to safety.
“He left a little baby,” said Utano. “This is very important to TWU. This is very important to the public. We need the system to operate safely.”
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(Additional reporting was done by the Daily News' Clayton Guse and Chris Sommerfeldt.)
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