Banks in the balance
Last weekend, Eric Adams suggested that as mayor, he might want to keep Mayor de Blasio’s homeless services chief, Steve Banks, citing “fresh ideas” he’s had and “amazing things” he’s done. Then jaws dropped, lots of them. A quick tour around Manhattan, where countless unsheltered individuals are sprawled, should dispel Adams of the notion that Banks has turned the tide of what still feels like an intractable problem. So should a glance at the numbers of people in shelter. Back in 2013, around 10,000 families with children slept in such facilities on any given night. At times under de Blasio’s watch, the number has eclipsed 13,000 (it’s now way down, likely because of the state’s COVID eviction moratorium). Meanwhile, the number of single adults in shelter has gone from under 10,000 at the start of de Blasio’s term to more than 17,000 today.
Not enough supportive housing — the best way to help people with drug and mental health problems stabilize their lives — has materialized, a failure the de Blasio administration shares with Gov. Cuomo. A massive shelter network has grown, including bad-fit hotel rooms that cost millions (even before COVID).
That’s the bad; now, the good. It was under Banks’s that Homeless Services and the Human Resources Administration merged, that the city acquired cluster-sites and converted them into permanent housing, and that the city scaled up to nearly 1,300 Safe Haven and stabilization beds, giving rough sleepers a place to bed down without usual barriers to entry. On his watch, outreach teams have connected with more desperate individuals.
In the depths of the pandemic, Banks smartly used the overnight shuttering of subways as an opportunity to help people camping out on trains and platforms. And though unpopular, during COVID it was correct to temporarily move homeless people from congregate shelters to otherwise empty hotels, a bill the feds picked up.
Banks has overall been a pragmatic commissioner — not the bleeding-heart caricature of fever dreams. That’s what Adams should’ve said.