NEXT STOP FOR MANY IS A SHELTER
Blas: Most ousted train vagrants take aid
Hundreds of homeless people are leaving the city’s subway system for shelters amid overnight coronavirus cleanings, Mayor de Blasio said on Sunday — but whether they stay is another matter.
“Sometimes it literally works the first time when someone comes off the street and they like what they experience in a safe haven of a shelter or they get the medical care they need,” de Blasio said during a press briefing.
“And sometimes it’s not as immediate. It takes several rounds, if you will.”
While many of the homeless subway riders — forced up to street level from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. by the now-nightly closures — have accepted a helping hand, several others have spent the nights riding buses or roughing it on the streets.
Several have expressed fears of contracting COVID-19 in packed city shelters, while others have decried the lack of services in the facilities.
“Now I’m gonna sleep outside,” one man, who gave his name as Rick, told the advocacy group Human.nyc outside a shelter where he was driven after being ousted from the 7 train early Friday.
“I don’t want to go to the shelters . . . There’s no help.”
Overall, de Blasio held up the initiative to reroute homeless people from the rails to city facilities as a success.
“We keep seeing something very special happening,” Hizzoner said on Sunday.
“This is about changing people’s lives. In just a matter of days, hundreds upon hundreds of people accepting services, coming into shelter.”
Of 416 homeless engaged by NYPD cops and city social workers on Friday night, 212 agreed to enter either a shelter or hospital, while 198 of 384
who were engaged the next night accepted a helping hand, de Blasio said.
But de Blasio and Steven Banks, the besieged commissioner of the city’s Department of Homeless Services, conceded that some homeless go no farther than the shelter door.
“I would expect if you’re talking about the last few nights, you’re going to see a mix,” de Blasio said. “You’re going to see people who came in for one night. You’re going to see people who have stayed in longer. You’re going to see people who will, some cases, go back to the streets over time, others who we’re going to keep in permanently.
“But it’s all going to be about persistence.”
The city on Sunday could not provide exact figures for how many homeless who left the subways for shelters actually stayed in the facilities.
Banks added that after seeing some walk away overnight Thursday into Friday, outreach workers changed course by bringing the homeless directly to shelters rather than the central intake facility.
“We began to do that on Saturday morning and this morning,” Banks said on Sunday. “And we think that is giving an additional helping hand to those who may be ready to take the hand but not yet ready to go all the way with that helping hand.”