N.Y. system could provide a blueprint

NEW YORK — It’s before dawn when two outreach workers find a homeless man known as Juice near a train station in Harlem. A nurse will be visiting to discuss his heart problems, they tell him.

A short time later, in Marcus Garvey Park, the caseworkers approach a man zipped inside a sleeping bag. They know he’s teasing when he gives a phony name.

Gladys Rivera and Ali Olson are part of a citywide, round-the-clock army of workers for nonprofits contracted by the city. Their aim is to get the homeless into shelter. They are often rejected, but they do not give up.

“You never know which one is going to be the one that sticks,” said Olson.

The nation’s most populous city also has the nation’s largest homeless population, with 75,000. But there is one key difference: The homeless in New York are far less visible on a daily basis than in West Coast cities, where the population has exploded over the past couple years.

The city had fewer than 4,000 unsheltered homeless in an official count taken in January. That amounts to only about 1 in 20 homeless people being unsheltered. In California, Oregon and Washington combined, 12 out of every 20 homeless people have no shelter at night.

Some West Coast cities are pushing for permanent affordable housing as a long-term fix for the growing homeless crisis, but officials also are looking for immediate answers. The idea of right-to-shelter programs mimicking New York’s has popped up in this year’s mayoral race in Seattle.

New York’s policy grew out of a series of court rulings dating to the 1970s. Homeless families can get short-term shelter while their cases are investigated and longer-term shelter if they are found to need it. For single adults, there is even easier access to the system. They show up at intake centers and are usually given a place to stay that night.

There are ample opportunities to get inside, said Cedric Harden, a 35-year-old formerly homeless man now working as a chef.

“You have to be crazy as hell to be homeless in New York City,” he said.

Paul Franklin is staying in a shelter in the Bronx while he waits for an apartment to be ready for him in a building that provides supportive housing.

“Eating out of garbage cans, sleeping in New York City subways, it’s not a pretty thing,” said Franklin, 57. “It’s no place I want to be.”