NYC subway homeless sweeps resulted in few long-term shelter stays: data

Nearly 2,300 homeless people were moved into shelters from the subways as part of Mayor Adams’ outreach initiatives through August — but more than two-thirds of them left the city’s care within a week of being admitted, according to data obtained the Daily News.

While Adams called his administration’s subway sweeps “a win” at an Aug. 30 press conference, homeless advocates say the efforts aren’t working if the vast majority of targeted individuals exit the shelter system after a short stay, in many cases likely to return to sleeping underground.

The data, which City Hall has refused to disclose for months, was released to The News this week in response to a Freedom of Information Law request. It shows that 2,281 homeless people got placed in shelters between Feb. 21 and Aug. 28 after being approached by outreach workers in the subways.

Of those individuals, only 688 were still in shelters within a week of first accepting placement, the data reveals. Cumulatively, that means a maximum of just 30% of the people who got a shelter bed as part of the subway outreach stayed longer than a week.

The data — which Adams did not discuss in detail during his August press conference — does not make clear if the other 70% who left the shelter system within a week went back to sleeping in the subways.

But Helen Strom, a homeless advocacy unit director at the Safety Net Project, said she’s confident many of them did.

“This data provides clear evidence that the mayor’s massive subway policing initiatives do not help most homeless people, instead shuffling people through a revolving door of policing and shelters,” said Strom, whose group engages in homeless outreach and legal representation. “The vast majority of those people went back to the street.”

After declining to release such information for months, a Department of Social Services spokeswoman responded to a request for comment Tuesday by stating that Adams’ administration has moved a total of 3,000 homeless people into shelters as part of subway outreach efforts, but only 1,000 of them remain in shelter as of this week.

“This is only the beginning,” the spokeswoman said. “We will continue to build on these efforts.”

The revelations about Adams’ homeless outreach programs come as the shelter system remains near a breaking point, with more than 64,000 people sleeping in it on any given night — an all-time high, according to city data.

The details also come on the heels of Adams announcing a new policy under which outreach workers and NYPD officers can hospitalize homeless people against their will if they’re deemed mentally ill.

[ NYC removed 1,500 homeless encampments under Mayor Adams, 104 people accepted help: latest city data ]

The subway outreach data obtained by The News was compiled on a weekly basis for Department of Social Services Commissioner Gary Jenkins, who oversees the shelter system.

The data covers two separate underground homeless outreach efforts handled by Jenkins’ agency: The Subway Safety Plan and the End of the Line initiative, known as EOL.

EOL, which predates Adams’ administration, consists of outreach workers approaching people sleeping in subway cars at the end of train lines in hopes of convincing them to enter a shelter. The Subway Safety Plan, by contrast, was launched by Adams on Feb. 21 and features outreach workers, NYPD officers and mental health professionals approaching homeless people across the transit system with the same goal.

The data shows that, between Feb. 21 and April 10, Jenkins received one report per week on the results of the Subway Safety Plan and another on the results of EOL.

However, after April 10, Jenkins only received one report per week combining the results of both programs, the data shows.

A former Social Services official with direct knowledge of the matter said the shift in how the reports were compiled was ordered due to the Subway Safety Plan’s “unimpressive” outcome.

The Social Services spokeswoman disputed that point, saying the distinction between the Subway Safety Plan and EOL was “preliminary.”

“All of these efforts collectively fall under the purview of the Subway Safety Plan and should be recognized as such,” she said.

The Subway Safety Plan data subset shows 161 people accepted shelter beds during the first 48 days of the Adams effort. Of them, just 40 were still in a shelter within the seven-day period of them first entering the system, the data shows. That means a maximum of just 25% of the individuals who got a shelter bed under the Subway Safety Plan stayed in the system longer than a week.

[ Inside look at the front lines of Mayor Adams’ homeless crackdown on NYC subway ]

Meanwhile, the data also makes clear that an overwhelming majority of the homeless people who accepted placement as part of the subway initiatives — 1,779 — were sent to dormitory-style shelters.

That’s in spite of the fact that Adams has vowed to focus on getting vulnerable homeless people into so-called safe haven and stabilization shelters, where they can access a range of social services after going through an application process. While rolling out his Subway Safety Plan in February, for instance, Adams promised to bring 500 new safe haven and stabilization beds online, on top of an existing stock of 2,500.

According to the data obtained by The News, the subway outreach efforts resulted in 502 people being placed in stabilization or safe haven beds, and just 261 appear to have stayed longer than a week.

Strom said hundreds of the city’s safe haven and stabilization beds are still empty, and urged Adams’ administration to make filling those its top priority.

“That would allow them to permanently house every single one of those people,” she said, “and still have thousands of units left over.”