SUBWAY IS OUR HOME
Vagrants nix aid
An effort by Mayor de Blasio to get the homeless out of the subways and enrolled in supportive programs has backfired, with the transit dwellers generally telling cops they’d rather get ticketed than go to a city shelter, according to a letter put forth by a group of anonymous transit cops.
De Blasio announced his Subway Diversion Project in June — touting “supports, not summonses” in a press release. The project allows homeless people found violating MTA rules — like taking up more than one subway seat — to avoid a costly ticket by opting into the program that offers options for shelter and social services.
But transit cops say they are “constantly being threatened and told by our immediate supervisors to get diversions,” according to the anonymous letter published by the Coalition for the Homeless.
While civil summonses could be issued on site, homeless persons caught in the act are instead arrested and brought to NYPD commands, where they are “coerced” to opt into the program, the letter states.
But despite the alleged coercion, the homeless are choosing to just take the ticket.
Of the 1,296 individuals the NYPD has encountered via the program from July through November, just 477 — or 37 percent — accepted shelter and other services, NYPD Transit Chief Edward Delatorre said Tuesday at a City Council hearing on the program.
That means two-thirds were issued civil summonses for rule-breaking offenses — many of which are trumped up in the first place, the anonymous officers allege.
“The homeless are now clearly being targeted as violators of transit rules and being treated differently than any other citizen,” the letter says.
“Can you imagine if we arrested someone in a business suit, on their commute home, with their briefcase on the seat next to them and happened to have forgotten their ID that day? Or if it was a 16-yearold sitting in the stairway waiting for their train so they can get to school? There would be an uproar.”
Police unions and advocacy groups, including the coalition, have panned the program for using officers and arrests to implement social services.
Delatorre said he hadn’t seen the missive before the council hearing and refuted a specific claim that police were under a “quota” to get people diverted into the program.
The chief added that the goal is to get to a point where cops can “expunge every single summons.”
“I don’t believe summonses are the answer. I believe connecting them to services are going to be the beginning of the answer,” he said. “My officers can make that connection to services.”