I'm shaking. Tonight in NYC more than 1,000 NYPD officers will descend underground to clear our homeless neighbors out of the subway trains and stations. 1,000 police moving 2,000+ (based on last released PIT estimate) human beings. (1/) nypost.com/2020/05/05/ove…
As I had feared (given the vastness of the NYC subway system and the relative paucity of homeless outreach workers), this Post article reports outreach teams will only be at end of lines, police will handle the rest of the system. (2/)
The Post article reports that in "practice runs" NYPD observed "100% compliance" with homeless people exiting the trains (of course, they are being forced off by police) but that very few accepted offers of shelter or hospital visits. (3/)
Many will just sleep on the streets instead. Our ERs are preparing for an influx of people seeking refuge. We are able to treat those who require medical care. But we have no housing to offer people. The cycle seems doomed to continue nightly. (4/)
The Mayor and Governor are gambling with human lives, making the bet that when they take away the one option many people who are homeless see as safe, they will accept the shelters that they have repeatedly declined in the past.(5/)
They are also betting that few non-homeless New Yorkers will notice or care enough to speak up. Count me out of that list. (6/)
Technical note, re: my 1st tweet "PIT" = point-in-time. It's the yearly count conducted on a single night of street/subway homelessness. In 2019 that count found 2,178 people sleeping on the subway. www1.nyc.gov/assets/dhs/dow… (end).
Adding also this article which has some more information. At least per the article, there will be some nurse presence (though only at end of line stations). google.com/amp/s/abcnews.…
Also want to give thanks 🙏 to the homeless outreach teams who are going to be working hard during these closures to get people those services they have available to offer. They (nor the individual NYPD officers called to this effort) aren’t responsible for larger policy choices.
I’m glad outreach workers were able to connect 139 people last night to shelters or Safe Havens. I continue to question: where the other 100s-1000s went, why closing subways is needed to connect ppl to services, how safe congregate shelters are right now.
