“New York I love you, But you’re bringing me down.” ~LCD Soundsystem
Of all the anthems dedicated to New York City, perhaps this one stands as the most appropriate right now. The city has been through hell, the never-nominated epicenter of America’s coronavirus outbreak. Its density and size didn’t help. Still, the city’s response to homelessness during the pandemic has disappointed many.
New Yorkers walk shoulder to shoulder on their way to towering offices full of fellow employees. They live in crowded apartment buildings. They pack into taxis and Ubers and buses and subway cars. Being the largest city in the country practically mandates it.
Perhaps the previous paragraph should be rewritten in the past tense. The metropolis currently resembles a ghost town, a shadow of its former self. The previously mentioned subway cars have also been abandoned, save for homeless people. The seams of social media have torn open, pictures and videos of homeless people riding the rails alongside healthcare and airline workers causing a digital stir. With reduced subway cars in circulation due to decreased ridership and the public’s magnifying glass focused on social distancing, or a lack thereof, more than ever before, NYC’s subway issues are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Social Distancing on Subways a Challenge
Concerns about homeless people on public transit are ramping up in large part due to fears of the virus spreading. More people in smaller spaces make social distancing challenging, if not impossible. According to riders, many are not adhering to the new mandate requiring public transit users to wear masks. Frustration is mounting.
“I think it’s safe to say everyone here is losing patience with the situation,” the interim NYC Transit president Sarah Feinberg told the Metropolitan Transit Authority board recently. She called for “aggressive” steps to be taken.
Significantly, “aggressive” does not necessarily mean “effective.” The MTA, for its part, has been stepping up what it calls “conversations” with homeless riders. Kelly Doran took to Twitter with a flurry of messages explaining the nature of these conversations.
The City’s response to people experiencing homelessness taking refuge in the subways is unreal, cruel, and ineffective. (1/) https://t.co/OkJjmrcKAs
— Kelly Doran MD MHS (@KellyMDoran) April 29, 2020
All riders are now required to exit the subway train at their final stop. NYPD outreach teams, composed of police officers, healthcare and social workers, speak to people whom they suspect are using the trains as a refuge. If the person has nowhere to call home, they’re given a choice: Go to a hospital or a homeless shelter.
Doran sees the offer as any empty one.
Speaking on the results of a typical conversation, “the man decided odds were he was safer at the hospital, so that’s where he went. Here’s what will happen next. An ER nurse then doc will evaluate him. They will most likely find no problem requiring hospital resources & discharge him, with [the] option of shelter or subway. The man has already proven he does not want to go to a shelter (likely for good reason) and so will end up back on the streets or again in the subway.”
Sounds rather cyclical: Remove homeless people from the train at terminal stations just to see them board again the next morning. Like so many of the same city’s bars at closing time, outreach programs seem to be using the you don’t have to go home, you just can’t stay here approach.
Last week, the NYPD stepped things up a notch. More than 1,000 police officers cleared out hundreds of homeless people from the subway system, which closed for the first time in 115 years. Last stop on arriving train. No passengers, please, rang the announcement shortly after midnight on May 6. The subway was closed for four hours to provide an opportunity for “disinfection.” Were they talking about coronavirus or the homeless people using the trains as shelter?
Measuring the “success” of the large-scale shutdown depends on which side of it you were on.
NYPD Chief Terence Monahan said that while people were “100 percent compliant, they were only able to convince around 20 percent to go to a shelter or hospital,” meaning hundreds of people were left with nowhere to go Wednesday night.
Doran countered with a thread of tweets referencing a recent Brian Lehrer podcast. During the May 10 show, Brian noted that only 10% of the homeless people that NYPD encountered on the first night had extended interactions with the outreach teams. Of those, 5% agreed to go to a shelter. Not quite the success the mayor claims.
One woman who was kicked off the subway said, “I’d rather sit outside than go to a shelter.” At the end of the show, a WCNY reporter said “dozens and dozens of people crouched on the street” during the cleanings and noted the subway cleaning is happening but “the main effort is getting all of the homeless people out … and moving them along.”
Kudos to @BrianLehrer for asking the right questions on NYC subway closures and clearing of people experiencing homelessness. Worth a listen. A ? with some highlights (1/) https://t.co/tOCAJNYQ3k
— Kelly Doran MD MHS (@KellyMDoran) May 11, 2020
New York and its mayor aren’t without vision.
Bill de Blasio released a comprehensive plan laying out an ambitious strategy to end chronic street homelessness in his city by 2024. A key part of the plan is Safe Haven, a low-barrier housing program that has tripled capacity in the past five years and aims to open up an additional 1,000 beds over the next few.
But those additional 1,000 beds don’t exist now. Instead, vulnerable people are finding shelter in subway cars, cars that have been decreasing in number. Mayor de Blasio provided promises of relief when he announced that “the city would increase outreach efforts for homeless people at subway stations and provide 200 more shelter beds.” But will homeless people opt for city-provided shelter accommodations?
Advocates for people suffering from homelessness say that many are avoiding shelters because of the dangers they pose. Social distancing is a luxury that most shelters can’t accommodate. “‘It’s a Time Bomb’: 23 Die as Virus Hits Packed Homeless Shelters” was the headline of a recent New York Times article. That number has tripled since.
It’s not hard to see why so many homeless people opt for subway cars. At least they have some semblance of space and control in these moving metal boxes. And if it means a “conversation” with an outreach worker every now and then, so be it. The situation will remain until real solutions that safely house homeless people are created. For those homeless New Yorkers that have already died from coronavirus, it’s too late.
