NYC says it moved 3,500 people out of homeless encampments, but just 114 into shelter

The Adams administration spent $3.5 million clearing 2,300 homeless encampments from public spaces between January to September last year, according to new numbers released by the administration on Friday.

But only 114 of the 3,500 homeless people displaced by the clearances were moved into temporary shelter, according to the data. No one was placed in permanent housing, according to the report.

City Hall spokesperson William Fowler said the new reporting requirement doesn’t tell a full story or consider when people may go to shelter before or after a sweep.

“But let’s be clear: We know there is still more work to be done. That is why Mayor [Eric] Adams announced an ambitious $650 million investment in his State of the City address to tackle street homelessness, including an additional 900 new safe haven beds to get more New Yorkers the help they deserve,” Fowler said. "Mayor Adams has been clear that there is no dignity in sleeping on the streets, and there is no moral superiority in just walking by and doing nothing.”

City officials say it takes several attempts to convince people living on the street to accept shelter and with the city’s vacancy rate hovering at 1.4% housing options are limited. Obtaining more permanent housing options or housing vouchers also requires paperwork and identification and can’t be done the same day on site, officials said.

City Councilmember Sandy Nurse said the fact that no one affected is now in permanent housing shows that clearing the encampments is a failure.

“ If you cannot show that you have permanently housed a single individual, there is no way you can look at this and say this is a success,” said Nurse, who sponsored legislation to get the city to detail the sweeps' frequency, cost and effectiveness.

Although former mayors have also conducted sweeps, Mayor Eric Adams ordered an interagency collaboration led by the NYPD to get people off the streets and connected to services. More than 10,000 city workers participated in the sweeps, which included the sanitation department to dismantle any physical structures or tents and the NYPD, according to the data.

Employees from the parks, sanitation and homeless services departments, as well as police, respond to complaints to clear tents, cardboard boxes or encampments in public spaces and offer services to homeless people on site.

The reports show the sanitation department made up the bulk of the cost and police were involved in all but one of the sweeps.

The data is required under a City Council law passed in 2023 and is expected to be released quarterly. The first report was due in May but city officials said the request was unprecedented and required more time to put together. The data discloses the agencies involved in the sweeps, how often the sweeps happen and what services were offered to homeless individuals.

The data also show 71% of the sweeps occurred at locations that were previously cleared.

Gothamist previously obtained some records on the clearances that showed some sites that operated as street vendor locations were visited nearly 200 times. But other street corners where homeless individuals congregated were also cleared multiple times, the records showed.

Fowler said 97% of homeless New Yorkers reside in city shelters and the Adams administration has helped 8,000 people off the subways and into temporary housing through other outreach efforts.

Homeless advocates have long argued the city’s sweeps are ineffective and can be traumatizing for the people involved, whose few possessions are often thrown away.

“They should be using all of these city resources and millions of dollars to give homes to people but instead they use it to push and kick them around in the streets,” said Eduardo Ventura, who has previously been cleared out in the city’s sweeps and is a member of the advocacy group Safety Net Activists. “We need to help and care for homeless people and house them, not waste the city's resources on harming them."

Nurse said the city's next mayor must focus on eliminating barriers to permanent housing because Adams’ strategy isn’t working.

“ The mayor has focused almost 100% of his public safety approach, which includes the street homeless removal strategy, as an aesthetic and cosmetic approach,” she said. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Mayor Adams Takes Unprecedented Action to Curb Street Homelessness, Support People With Severe Mental Illness With $650 Million Investment for City's Most Vulernable Population

NEW YORK – As part of a $650 million plan to tackle street homelessness announced in last week's State of the City address, New York City Mayor Eric Adams today unveiled details of the administration's historic investment to help New York City's most vulnerable populations and support those with severe mental illness, including a new effort to support those with severe mental illness and who do not have a home. Under a new, innovative model, "Bridge to Home," NYC Health + Hospitals will offer a supportive, home-like environment to patients with serious mental illness who are ready for discharge from the hospital but do not have a place to go. By offering patients intensive treatment and comprehensive support, Bridge to Home aims to keep patients on a path toward sustained success, reducing unnecessary emergency room visits and inpatient hospitalizations, decreasing street homelessness and reliance on shelters, and lowering interactions with the criminal justice system. NYC Health + Hospitals expects to ramp the program up in Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 and fully operationalize it in FY27, serving up to 100 beds.

As part of this street homelessness plan, Mayor Adams also announced a dramatic expansion of the city's capacity to serve people experiencing unsheltered homelessness by adding 900 Safe Haven shelter beds and 100 Runaway and Homeless Youth Beds, which offer intensive wraparound services and specialized resources that drastically increase success rates. These initiatives are a key component of the administration's Street Homeless Solutions Plan. Today's announcement represents a new investment of over $620 million over five years to serve the street homeless population. Combined with the administration's previous Subway Safety Plan investment, this investment brings the New York City Department of Homeless Services street programming budget to over $350 million in FY25 and $400 million at full ramp-up, which will be the largest annual investment in street sheltering in city history and is more than double the city's street programming budget from when Mayor Adams entered office.

Building on this work, Mayor Adams will also be advancing a bold new initiative aimed at ensuring no child should ever be born into New York City's shelter system. The $30 million pilot program will connect soon-to-be parents applying for shelter with services that help them find permanent housing and prevent homelessness, and will be rolled out over the coming weeks.

"For too long, government has failed to care for and help unhoused New Yorkers, especially those with severe mental illness, so when we came into office, we said the days of ignoring people in need — on our streets and in our subways — were over," said Mayor Adams. "Today, we are announcing further details of our historic $650 million effort to tackle street homelessness. Our new 'Bridge to Home' model will help New Yorkers with severe mental illness and invest in 1,000 street beds that we know are in high demand and that are highly effective. This administration has made the largest annual investment in serving street homelessness in the city's history and has more than doubled our street programming budget from when we came into office. We will continue to lead on this issue because it is the right and compassionate thing to do, and it is how we make New York City the best place to raise a family."

"Our highest needs patients deserve our highest level of care," said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD. "'Bridge to Home' will give our patients with serious mental illness a new beginning, combining social and recreational activities with the privacy of their own room and psychiatric support from a comprehensive care team, including peers. Our goal is to keep these patients engaged in care and able to develop the skills needed to live a healthy and independent life. We are thrilled that Mayor Adams has invested in this exciting innovation in the city's approach to behavioral health and stability."

Bridge to Home

As the city's first-of-its-kind model, Bridge to Home will provide single rooms, three meals a day, structured recreation, and individualized, comprehensive behavioral health care on-site, including medication management, individual and group therapy, substance use disorder treatment, and around-the-clock support. For a period of six to 12 months, patients will stay in temporary housing with comprehensive behavioral health treatment located on-site. They will be allowed to stay at this residence until they can be transitioned to permanent supportive housing facilitated by the health system's "Housing for Health" initiative. The program will be staffed 24/7 by NYC Health + Hospitals professionals, including psychiatric providers, social workers, nurses, peer specialists, and licensed creative arts therapists. The administration is investing $13 million in the annual baseline budget for Bridge to Home.

Bridge to Home will be a critical addition to the continuum of care for behavioral health, giving the city's public hospitals an additional discharge option that was previously missing for individuals who no longer meet inpatient criteria but need additional supports in the community. It builds on the care provided by the system's three Extended Care Units (ECUs), which offer inpatient care for patients with serious mental illness who have been historically disconnected from health and social services for up to 120 days. For these New Yorkers, the ECUs provide more intensive inpatient treatment coupled with social learning, behavioral paradigms, and person-centered rehabilitation.

In the ECU, patients access psychopharmacological treatment; rehabilitative activities, including music and art therapy; reading; and various exercises, regardless of insurance status or ability to pay. ECUs are focused on comprehensive discharge and aftercare planning with 50 percent of patients connected to permanent housing within six months of discharge. Data shows that individuals have seen a 54 percent reduction in Emergency Department visits and inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations within the same period when using ECUs.

Increasing Unsheltered Homelessness Bed Capacity

Safe Haven shelter beds are "low-barrier to entry" shelter facilities that offer transitional housing and are often the first step towards helping New Yorkers experiencing homelessness accept services and transition off of the streets and out of the subways.

Safe Havens and stabilization beds are small-scale, low-barrier programs specifically tailored for unsheltered individuals who may be resistant to accepting, or who may not be best served by, other services, including traditional transitional housing settings. These sites are equipped with on-site services and compassionate staff who work closely with these New Yorkers to build trust, stabilize lives, encourage further transition off the streets and out of the subways, and help them ultimately transition into permanent housing. Today's announcement brings the total capacity of Safe Haven and stabilization beds to 4,900. The administration is investing $106 million in the annual baseline budget for Safe Havens and other low-barrier beds.

Runaway and Homeless Youth beds provide more specialized resources to younger adults and vulnerable populations. Youth experiencing homelessness are more likely to accept services in these facilities, which are in high demand and often oversubscribed. Today's announcement brings the total capacity of Runaway and Homeless Youth beds to over 900. The administration is investing $6 million in the annual baseline budget for Homeless Young Adult beds.

The Adams administration has made the largest investment in New York City history in creating specialized shelter beds to address street homelessness. The city has opened 1,400 Safe Haven and stabilization beds since the start of the administration and doubled the number of street outreach teams. In February 2022, Mayor Adams launched the Subway Safety Plan to address public safety concerns and support people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, including some of the city's hardest-to-reach New Yorkers experiencing mental health and substance use challenges on New York City's subways. Since the start of the plan, over 8,000 New Yorkers have been connected to shelter, with over 2,800 now in permanent, affordable housing. A key part of the Subway Safety Plan is the co-response programs, such as Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness (PATH) and Subway Co-Response Outreach Teams (SCOUT), which bring together law enforcement and trained clinicians to conduct outreach on subways. Since the beginning of PATH, the administration has contacted over 7,400 unhoused New Yorkers and delivered services to over 2,200 people.

"The senseless acts of violence we've seen across New York City should not be happening, and those suffering from severe mental illness should get the care they need," said New York State Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton. "As we work together to pass my bill at the state level, the Supportive Interventions Act, we need to ensure that the proper resources are in place to support those who need the help. We need to continue to work together to get those in crisis help and make our communities safer."

"I've had the opportunity to collaborate with leadership at Bellevue to address health needs in our community and across the city. I know this world-class institution can help lead the way in addressing the closely intertwined issues of mental illness and homelessness," said New York State Assemblymember Harvey Epstein. "Without a stable living environment and supports, it's hard for individuals in crisis to move forward with their lives and get well. Today's announcement is a critical step towards ensuring that people in crisis are able to get the support they need to live productive lives. I look forward to working with the city and leadership at Bellevue to ensure an effective rollout of this program that treats individuals with dignity and compassion,"

"In a city where one in ten people experiences serious psychological distress, and only half receive treatment, we must do everything we can to bring people the help they need. I commend Mayor Adams for this common sense $650 million investment to address the crisis among our mentally ill and homeless New Yorkers," said New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar. "This comprehensive plan provides over 1,000 new Safe Haven beds, Runaway and Homeless Youth Beds, and beds for discharged patients with serious mental illness. These will be welcoming environments to support and uplift vulnerable New Yorkers who have no other safe housing option, putting them on the path to treatment and stable housing. This builds upon the administration's extensive homeless outreach and services that have already moved 8,000 people from the subways into shelter and transitioned 18,500 households into permanent housing. I am building on this success by introducing the Empire State of Mind Act, which will provide unprecedented access to mental healthcare. Together, we will bring support and care to all New Yorkers, allowing everyone to enjoy dignity, safety, and stability."

"Mental illness, particularly among our unhoused population, has contributed to a troubling rise in random acts of violence and a heightened sense of unease in our city," said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. "Addressing this crisis requires thoughtful, compassionate action, and I commend the mayor for his proposals aimed at providing treatment, housing, and support, rather than relying on arrest and incarceration. While no single initiative can solve these complex challenges, investments in compassionate, evidence-based approaches will improve public safety and help restore a sense of security for all New Yorkers."

"Individuals with severe mental illness require specialized services to help them get the care they need," said New York City Councilmember and Health Committee Chair Lynn Schulman. "Today's announcement by Mayor Adams of a significant funding investment in supportive beds and comprehensive treatment is a big step in the right direction to address this important issue."

"We have seen the homelessness and mental health crises playing out on our streets for far too long," said New York City Councilmember Keith Powers. "No one should have to spend a night on the street, particularly children. Shelter beds are a crucial measure to bring people inside and out of the elements, and to begin the process of connecting them to long-term, stable housing. Investments like these are vital to making our city safer, all while building sustainable solutions for those who are unhoused."

"Mayor Adams' plan represents the holistic approach we need to truly address the crisis of street homelessness and support New Yorkers with severe mental illness," said New York City Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse. "These are some of our most vulnerable neighbors, and they need an aggressive yet sensitive approach that combines compassionate care with tangible resources. Programs like 'Bridge to Home' and the expansion of Safe Haven beds are crucial steps toward breaking the cycle of homelessness and ensuring that no one is left behind. We must act with urgency and empathy to restore dignity and hope to these New Yorkers."

Media Contact

pressoffice@cityhall.nyc.gov
(212) 788-2958

How to help homeless people in NYC as winter months bring dangerous conditions

This time of year presents unique challenges for people who don't have a place to live. The temperatures drop and the need for shelter skyrockets. But for those who see people living on the streets and want to help, the best way to do so is not always clear, especially if the situation feels urgent, unpredictable, or dangerous.

David Giffen is the executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless. He joined WNYC’s "Morning Edition" host Michael Hill this week to talk about what to do.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Michael Hill: Mr. Giffen, what does Coalition for the Homeless recommend we do when we want to help people we see who are unhoused this time of year?

David Giffen: What many people need is just information about where they can get help because there are lots of different types of help that an individual might need. The first thing I would recommend is to give them the phone number of the coalition's crisis hotline. Our crisis services help about 10,000 people a year. So you can go to our website to find that, it's 888-358-2384. You know, we also have a printable PDF that has all kinds of resources for people experiencing homelessness — everything from where they think where they can get food to clothing. So you can go to our website and print that out.

And in fact, we have a whole page called how to help that presents you with all kinds of different scenarios you might come across, and then gives you advice about what to do in that situation.

How is the crisis hotline different from a 311 call?

Well, when you call 311 generally what happens is the city will deploy law enforcement. Sending uniformed police officers to involuntarily remove somebody from the subway system — which is the city's preferred method now — really doesn't give people the help that they need. Look, if you see somebody who is apparently presenting a danger to themself or to others, call 311 or 911 in that situation.

But what we need to see happening more often is trained mental health professionals being deployed, who know how to de-escalate situations, and who can offer people the help they need.

Let's say we're walking by a person who is unhoused, and the person's on the street. We want to do something in that very moment. No donating to an organization at that moment, but what do we do?

Look, if you feel comfortable giving somebody food, clothing, money, please do so. If you see a human being that's suffering and in need, it's very hard to walk by and not want to do something directly. You know, I have kids, and for my 9 year old it's impossible for her to walk by somebody on the street and not demand to stop and try to talk to them and try to give them money.

I wish we all, you know, stayed in touch with our inner child in that way because we all do have that desire to help somebody in trouble. If you feel uncomfortable or if it feels like a situation that might present some physical danger — which is, by the way, extremely rare — then don't do so.

Another situation, what do you recommend if someone is experiencing medical distress? Let's say someone looks like they may be hypothermic, while some folks may call the police in that instance, others may be reluctant to do so, maybe because of their own experiences with law enforcement. What do you recommend?

If somebody is in imminent danger, call 911. Don't hesitate. They're going to need medical help in that situation. So that is absolutely the advice. If you see somebody who looks like they're in trouble and in imminent physical danger, then definitely call 911.

Can you think of a place where they're getting it right or close to right in terms of dealing with the issue of the unhoused on the street?

Yeah, you know, unfortunately, we have to get in an airplane and fly to Helsinki. Helsinki as a city fully adopted the housing first model to address homelessness. The housing first model means that you approach somebody who's without a home and you say, “Here's an apartment.” You just put them in the apartment and it's not contingent upon participation in any kind of program. Once they're housed, then you offer them the help that they need. The housing first model is very successful. Helsinki used it to effectively eliminate homelessness in that city. There are effectively no housing first programs operating in New York City anymore. There are some that are very successful at it, but their units are full and there's a two- or three-year waiting list for any vacancy.

NYC’s Homeless Camp Sweeps Violate Constitution, Lawsuit Claims The city is supposed to give notice first and store people’s possessions, but it’s not the suit claims.

he ashes of deceased relatives, warm clothes in the dead of winter, personal documents and irreplaceable family photographs are just some of the items New Yorkers say were thrown away during homeless encampment sweeps that often take place with little or no warning, according to a new federal lawsuit filed Tuesday. 

The city’s own internal policies require at least 48 hours warning ahead of such sweeps, and for people to have most of their belongings stored for up to 90 days. 

But in practice, the new lawsuit filed by six homeless New Yorkers and the Urban Justice Center Safety Net Project alleges that city officials regularly violate those procedures, sweeping encampments over and over again with little or no warning and simply throwing people’s possessions away. 

The plaintiffs are seeking to have the suit certified as a class action, which would allow thousands of other homeless people impacted by these sweeps to join the case, which alleges that the city is violating the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. 

While the suit, which was first reported by The New York Times, describes repeated interactions between homeless outreach workers and the plaintiffs, as they were only offered transportation to drop-in centers — where the wait for a bed could last days.

Three of the six plaintiffs still live on city streets, while another three now have safe haven beds at shelters with less restrictive rules and fewer roommates but only after the Safety Net Project intervened on their behalf. 

“Sweeps are cruel, counterproductive, and cause immense harm to homeless New Yorkers,” said Natalie Druce, a staff attorney with the Urban Justice Center – Safety Net Project in a statement announcing the lawsuit, which names defendants including the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams, acting NYPD Commissioner Thomas Donlon, Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Park and Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch. 

“Not only is the City’s conduct unlawful but it is punitive and ineffective—homeless people are being policed, punished for their existence in public space, and pushed further away from permanent housing,” Druce said.

William Fowler, a spokesperson for Adams, defended the city’s approach to homeless encampments, saying more than 2,000 people who had lived on the streets made it into permanent housing in the past two fiscal years. 

“The city’s homeless encampment outreach and clean up efforts operate under one defining principle: that there is nothing dignified about being forced to sleep on the streets,” Fowler said. “Rather than walking past an encampment and doing nothing to help those in need, we treat people experiencing homelessness with dignity, offering to connect them to housing, health care, and to properly store their valuables while temporary structures not meant to be lived in are removed.”

The city’s Law Department will review the lawsuit, Fowler added. 

“We’re going to rid the encampments off our street and we’re going to place people in healthy living conditions with wraparound services,” Adams told the Times in March of 2022, promoting the sweeps his administration has referred to as “clean-ups.” 

“I’m looking to do it within a two weeks’ period.”

The next month, Adams, appearing at a clean-up, said that “’I can’t help but to believe that if [apostles] Matthew, Mark, Luke and John was here today, he would be on the streets with me, helping people get out of encampments.’ 

‘You Don’t Know Where to Go’

The sweeps are part of longstanding city policy to curb the seemingly intractable problem of street homelessness. New York City’s unique “right to shelter” protections under the state constitution and its cold winters mean many more homeless New Yorkers are housed indoors than in other cities. 

People who remain outside often do so because they prefer it to the city’s notoriously dangerous and overcrowded congregate shelter system where dozens of people are assigned to a single room.  

NYC homelessness is at its highest point in nearly a century, advocates say. This borough has the most reports

By

• Erik Bascome | tbascome@siadvance.com

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Amid skyrocketing rent prices, an influx of migrants and an ongoing mental health crisis, advocates believe that homelessness in New York City has reached its highest point in nearly a century.

The Coalition for the Homeless, one of the city’s leading homeless advocacy organizations, estimates that there are approximately 350,000 homeless individuals living in New York City, including roughly 132,000 sleeping in city-run shelters, more than 200,000 temporarily staying with others and thousands more sleeping unsheltered on the streets, in encampments and within the city’s mass transit system.

The Staten Island Advance/SILive.com recently analyzed 311 complaint data from New York City’s Open Data portal to see which parts of the city are filing the most complaints regarding homeless individuals and encampments, offering insights into which areas the city should be targeting in its outreach efforts.

The data set includes all 311 complaints throughout the five boroughs from Jan. 1 through Oct. 14, the last date for which data was available at the time of the analysis.

Through Oct. 14, there had been 41,782 homeless complaints filed across New York City, with an overwhelming majority of them, more than 67%, coming from Manhattan.

Brooklyn has had the second-most homeless complaints so far this year with 6,652, followed by Queens with 5,048, the Bronx with 1,702 and Staten Island with 227. The remaining four complaints did not list a specific borough.

ON STATEN ISLAND

Further analysis showed that certain Staten Island neighborhoods have filed far more homeless complaints than others through mid-October, with the 10301 ZIP code, which includes St. George, Tompkinsville, New Brighton, Grymes Hill, Sunnyside, Randall Manor and part of Livingston, accounting for 88 complaints, which was more than twice as many as the next closest ZIP code.

Here’s a look at how many homeless complaints have been filed in each Staten Island ZIP code through the first nine-plus months of 2024.

10301 (St. George, Tompkinsville, New Brighton, Grymes Hill, Sunnyside, Randall Manor and part of Livingston)

• 88 homeless complaints

10302 (Port Richmond and Elm Park)

• 23 homeless complaints

10303 (Mariners Harbor)

4 homeless complaints

10304 (Clifton, Concord, Emerson Hill, Stapleton, Todt Hill and part of Dongan Hills)

• 7 homeless complaints

10305 (Arrochar, Fort Wadsworth, Grasmere, Ocean Breeze, Rosebank, Shore Acres, South Beach and part of Dongan Hills)

• 16 homeless complaints

10306 (Egbertville, Grant City, Midland Beach, New Dorp, New Dorp Beach, Oakwood, Richmond and part of Dongan Hills)

• 21 homeless complaints

10307 (Tottenville)

• 1 homeless complaint

• 10308 (Great Kills and Bay Terrace)

  • 1 homeless complaint

  10309 (Pleasant Plains, Richmond Valley, Prince’s Bay, Charleston, Rossville and Woodrow)

  • 15 homeless complaints

  10310 (West Brighton and part of Livingston)

  • 6 homeless complaints

  10312 (Annadale, Arden Heights, Eltingville, Greenridge and Huguenot)

  • 11 homeless complaints

  10314 (Bulls Head, Castleton Corners, Graniteville, Meiers Corners, New Springville, Travis, Westerleigh and Willowbrook)

• 31 homeless complaints
  

Demand for Interpreting at NYC Homeless Shelters Spikes 400% Since 2020

New York City’s homeless shelters have seen a staggering rise in interpreting requests since 2020. According to a September 2024 Mayor’s Management Report (MMR), requests for telephonic interpreting (OPI) increased fivefold, from 18,660 in 2020 to 107,083 in 2024. 

The jump in interpreting requests follows a massive influx of migrants and asylum seekers, with a reported 210,000 coming to New York City since 2022. 

At the same time, New York’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) has seen an 89% increase in DHS shelter occupancy compared to the end of 2022. According to the MMR, “tens of thousands” of migrants remain at DHS sites as well as in emergency shelters run by other city agencies.

The MMR does not indicate what percentage of DHS site and shelter residents have limited English proficiency (LEP), nor does it quantify what portion of DHS’ daily or annual spend is for language services.

The MMR also attributed the increase in requests in part to more participating shelters and greater client/staff awareness of language services.

The report, however, does not capture the full scope of language services DHS provides occupants, since it only tracks the number of OPI requests. Spanish-speaking residents also have access to on-site interpreters and bilingual staff.

The discrepancy in language services for non-Spanish-speaking LEP migrants has not gone unnoticed, as demonstrated by an April 2024 City Council hearing that focused on the experiences of black migrants, including challenges some African migrants have encountered when trying to communicate with shelter staff.

New York’s Local Law 30 requires covered agencies — those providing direct public services or emergency services — to “translate commonly distributed documents into 10 designated languages,” which would likely cover Arabic and French, spoken by some African migrants. The requirement to provide OPI “in at least 100 languages” may or may not also apply to Wolof, Fulani, and Bambara, among other requested African languages. 

New York City is not the only metropolitan area struggling to house and accommodate new migrants, with cities such as Chicago requesting billions of dollars in aid from the federal government. Exact numbers of migrants in major cities, and the costs associated with housing and other services, tend to vary since few estimates are comprehensive, but current data show no signs of a slowdown.

By Seyma Albarino

Senior Staff Writer at Slator. Trained interpreter and aspiring minimalist. Fan of dystopian fiction, not headlines. Based in Chicago.

THE SLEEPING BAG PROJECT NYC’S ANNUAL ‘KAREN STEDMAN WALK FOR WARMTH’, IS SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 6TH, 2024. WE WILL BE LEAVING FROM IN FRONT OF NYP BROOKLYN (METHODIST) @ 7AM.

Thinking about the homeless in a NYC heatwave: An essay How can I rest easy in my comfortably cool apartment

When New York City summer temperatures hit the mid 90s and humidity comes on full force, it is miserable—even life-threatening—to be on the street for an extended period of time.

I couldn’t help but wonder why a homeless person would remain outdoors instead of heading to a shelter. I felt compelled to ask a woman who was camped out on a Brooklyn sidewalk that question since there’s a women-only shelter just a few blocks away. She had her possessions arrayed around her in the meager shade of a shuttered newsstand outside CTown and was open to talking.

She told me she left the shelter because she didn’t feel safe: there were too many fights and she was bullied. And so she ended up on 9th Street in Park Slope. This was right before the heatwave started, but it was still very hot out.

The woman told me she just had to hang on just a few more days because she was on a list for an apartment. I have no way of knowing if that was true or not. I gave her some money, and while we were talking, another passerby gave her food and water and she blessed us both repeatedly. When I went back a day later, she was gone.

With NYC's increasingly extreme summers and winters, the question seems obvious: how can I rest easy in my comfortable apartment when there are people sleeping on the pavement?

A heatwave means Code Red

NYC has an extensive protocol that goes into place during a heatwave, called Code Red. There’s a similar plan that goes into effect during freezing temperatures—Code Blue.

A Department of Social Services spokesperson told me that during extreme weather conditions, outreach teams redouble their canvassing efforts across all five boroughs. The goal is to engage New Yorkers experiencing unsheltered homelessness and encourage them to come inside off the streets and connect with city resources. Those include cooling and drop-in centers.

“As part of our Code Red efforts during this heat wave, DHS and our provider-partner outreach teams are equipped with necessary supplies and continue to be out there around the clock, conducting enhanced efforts throughout and ensuring we are prioritizing the health and safety of some of our most vulnerable New Yorkers,” the spokesperson said.

Highest level of homelessness

According to the Coalition for the Homeless, homelessness in NYC has reached the highest level since the Great Depression. In April 2024, 132,057 people slept each night in NYC shelters. The organization says thousands sleep unsheltered in public spaces—an exact number is impossible to determine.

However, the record increase in the shelter census is primarily driven by the more than 200,000 asylum seekers who have come through NYC’s intake system since spring 2022, according to DSS. Recent arrivals are not typically eligible for rental subsidies so the city is providing emergency transitional housing. If you factor out the asylum population, the number of New Yorkers seeking shelter is 7 percent below the pre-pandemic peak.

The primary cause of homelessness is very straightforward: the lack of affordable housing. An analysis by McKinsey & Company for the Regional Plan Association identified a shortage of 540,000 housing units for the tri-state region. City of Yes, a housing development plan from Mayor Eric Adams, calls for building more housing in every NYC neighborhood, but it is likely to face fierce opposition.

I see this duality in my reporting and in my conversations with friends and neighbors: New Yorkers understand there is a housing crisis—they experience the high cost of housing themselves. But the majority do not want more affordable housing—which needs density to make it financially feasible, developers say—built on their block because that would require zoning changes to allow for bigger buildings. Few seem to be in favor because of the impact it will have on the character of their neighborhood, or because more housing will make parking more difficult or take up seats in their neighborhood's schools—these are the concerns.

And plans to create housing shelters draw even more vociferous opposition.

Right in your face

Homelessness is not an abstract problem. It’s always right in your face, maybe that’s why it isn’t really seen until someone who is homeless gets uncomfortably close, like on your block or in your own building. Brick received several queries recently from readers wanting to know what they could do about homeless people entering where they lived.

In one case, a homeless person was repeatedly entering a building via a front door that is not kept locked. In another case, we heard about someone paying a landlord to sleep in a hallway. Tenants were choosing to look the other way for now.

“We know the situation is illegal, but we worry reporting it will do more harm than good,” they wrote.

Some situations are more complicated, for example, during the heatwave, a post on NextDoor asked for ways to help someone sleeping at the edge of Prospect Park and refusing assistance. Part of the problem was that the homeless person had a lot of stuff: it was piled all around a park bench, even hanging in a nearby tree, and creating a mess, according to the post. Many comments argued for this person’s right to be left alone. Eventually, the Parks Department intervened, it seems.

It's hard to help someone who doesn’t want help and may be suffering from mental illness but I can’t imagine force is effective in the long run, which is why the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision is chilling.

Last Friday’s ruling upheld an Oregon city’s ban on homeless people sleeping outdoors. The ordinances penalize sleeping and camping in public places like sidewalks, streets, and city parks. 

So many shelters, so many protests

Weirdly enough, on the same day a friend invited me to join a community group opposed to a 300-bed homeless shelter proposed for Greenwood Heights, a City Councilmember was arrested during a protest against the city’s plan to put a 150-bed shelter in Bensonhurst.

City Councilmember Susan Zhuang was charged on Wednesday with assault and accused of biting a police officer. According to The City, there have been weeks of demonstrations from the neighborhood’s Asian American community. The district doesn’t currently have a single homeless shelter, the site said.

Interestingly, this friend and I both once lived across the street from the women’s shelter in Park Slope. Sometimes it was noisy and sometimes there were emergency vehicles parked outside, but it wasn’t very different from any of the other places I’ve lived in NYC.

‘Have compassion’

I asked Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, what New Yorkers could do about homeless people, including when they enter your building.

“For anyone wondering what they can do about a homeless person sleeping on your block or your building, I would advise them to have compassion for someone who is trying to escape unbearable conditions outside,” Davidson said.

Regarding the homeless person sleeping in a hallway, Davidson said, “The landlord giving a person space to sleep is a moral thing to do.”

Then Davidson turned my questions around: Where have these tenants been when our elected officials slashed resources for homeless people? she asked.

“When a community opposes having shelters and changing zoning to create density and build more affordable and supportive housing, there are consequences,” she said. “People have nowhere to go.

“To the extent that it bothers you to see homeless people sleeping on the street or next to your building, make it priority to elect people who will build supportive and affordable housing,” she added.

If you see an individual who appears to be experiencing homelessness/in need outdoors in extreme heat/weather conditions, the Department of Social Services advises you to call 311 and an outreach team will be dispatched to help. For information about signs of heat illness, or where to find a cooling center in NYC, go here.

Jennifer White Karp

MANAGING EDITOR

Jennifer steers Brick Underground’s editorial coverage of New York City residential real estate and writes articles on market trends and strategies for buyers, sellers, and renters. Jennifer’s 15-year career in New York City real estate journalism includes stints as a writer and editor at The Real Deal and its spinoff publication, Luxury Listings NYC.

NYC’s Unsheltered Homeless Population Reaches Highest Number in More Than a Decade Volunteers and city staffers counted 4,140 people sleeping on the streets and subways.

An estimated 4,140 people were counted sleeping on New York City streets and subways during a federally-mandated annual survey, the highest number of unsheltered homeless people tallied in more than a decade.

The number of unsheltered homeless people counted this year during the HOPE count (Homeless Outreach Population Estimate) was up slightly from last year, when 4,042 people were counted, though each year advocates caution the figure is a rough estimate — and likely far less than the actual number of people living on the streets.

This year, teams of volunteers and city workers fanned out on Jan. 23, at a time when the city’s long-standing “right to shelter” protections had collapsed for adult migrants and securing a cot in the city’s shelter system could take more than a week. Hundreds of migrants spent days in overnight waiting rooms with no beds, while hundreds more were thought to have turned to the streets and subways, according to an internal city survey. 

Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Park, who oversees the annual count, pointed to the city’s ability to hold the line, with just a two percent increase in street homelessness, at a time when the number of people living in shelters had soared to unprecedented heights. 

“I think it’s really a reflection of the hard work that has been happening to make sure that we are doing consistent 24/7 outreach, that we have a continuum of services that we can offer people,” Park said, adding the administration had placed 2,000 people living on the streets into permanent housing over the past two years, including 500 who had been living on the subways.

But Natalie Druce, a staff attorney at the housing advocacy group Safety Net Project, said she thought the HOPE count figures showed certain Adams administration policies – like persistent encampment sweeps or hospitalizing homeless people against their will – weren’t working. 

“The various policies that effectively criminalize street homelessness, it demonstrates from our perspective this doesn't cause people to move out of street homelessness,” she said. “If anything it’s increased the street homeless population, the numbers demonstrate that.”

City officials also pointed out that compared to other major U.S. cities, a relatively low proportion of New York City’s homeless population live outdoors. In Los Angeles last year 52,000 of 72,000 homeless people were living outdoors (72%), whereas the unsheltered homeless in New York City is around 5% of the 124,000 who are unhoused in total. 

That discrepancy in large part is due to New York City’s unique “right to shelter” protections that require the city to house anyone who requests it. The Adams administration spent almost a year in court fighting homeless rights advocates in an effort to roll those protections back. A settlement in March sets stricter limits on the time adult migrants can stay in shelters.

“The right to shelter is absolutely fundamental to the work that DHS does,” Park said. “It's the bedrock of everything that we do.”

Over the past two years, New York City’s shelter system became a beacon to newly arriving migrants crossing the southern U.S. border in unprecedented numbers, in the absence of any meaningful federal support. 

New York City saw the largest increase in homelessness of any city in the country between 2022 and 2023, according to an April report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. And now more than 120,000 people live in the city’s vast shelter system, including more than 65,000 migrants, city officials said. 

Critics have blasted the Adams administration for strict 30- and 60-day time limits set on some migrant shelter stays, which have driven untold numbers into tenuous situations like overcrowded mosques or commercial spaces. 

"The increased street homelessness count is the clear result of the Administration's cruel and counterproductive shelter eviction policies," said Councilmember Shahana Hanif (D-Brooklyn), who has introduced a bill that would end the administration’s time limits on migrant shelter stays. "When we kick people out of the shelter system, it is inevitable that they will be forced to sleep on the streets and subways."

BY GWYNNE HOGAN JUNE 13, 2024, 2:13 P.M.

30K children lived in NYC homeless shelters every month last year, data shows

The highest number of children in nearly a decade were staying in New York City’s homeless shelters last year, according to a data dashboard unveiled by the comptroller’s office Thursday.

As homelessness rates among the youngest New Yorkers continue to surge, nearly 30,000 children in 2023 were living in shelters, according to the data.

The stats are part of a new database launched by Comptroller Brad Lander's office that offers a comprehensive, monthly view of the city’s ongoing homelessness crisis as rents rise and affordable housing options shrink across the five boroughs. The dashboard is going live as the city continues to grapple with a rise in migrants entering the city’s Department of Homeless Services shelter system and a new network of temporary facilities, along with other New Yorkers struggling to secure and maintain permanent housing.

“We urgently need to combat the homelessness crisis and we’ve got a lot better shot of managing it if we measure it, if we look at the data clearly, if we try to find the patterns,” Lander told Gothamist in an interview.

The public dashboard, which will be updated monthly as the city releases periodic data, details New York City’s shelter population by age, race and family composition, while also tracking eviction rates and shelter exits dating back to 2015.

An average of 13,000 children 5 years old or younger spent a night in a DHS shelter last year, a 47% increase from 2022. The nightly average increase was even sharper for teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 — up 64% in 2023 than the year prior. The nightly average shelter population for kids aged 6 to 13 also rose by 58%, data shows.

While thousands of migrant families with children reside in DHS facilities, Lander’s age-specific data excludes kids living in other city-run shelters created in the past two years to specifically house recently arrived immigrants.

Gabriela Sandoval Requena, policy director at the organization New Destiny Housing and a leader in the Family Homelessness Coalition, called the findings unsurprising given the dearth of housing options and the lingering economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income families.

Sandoval Requena, whose organization runs housing for victims of domestic violence, said the sharp increase demonstrates the need for more housing and stronger interventions to help people cover rent.

“Housing is the key solution that the state and city need to invest in,” she said. “We know shelter stays can be traumatizing. The shorter the shelter stay, the better.”

Overall, about more than 120,000 people are spending each night in a city-run homeless shelter, including DHS sites and facilities set up for migrants and run by other agencies — up 63% in the current fiscal year, according to the comptroller’s database.

Meanwhile, the Adams administration has helped 11% more New Yorkers exit shelter every month through subsidy programs this fiscal year, compared to last year, typically through a housing subsidy known as CityFHEPS that pays the bulk of the rent. The number of move-outs into permanent housing of any kind increased by 17%, according to DHS data.

That rate of exits from shelters into subsidized housing mirrors the rate of non-migrants entering Homeless Services facilities, but falls short of the overall rise in the shelter population, the data shows.

DHS spokesperson Neha Sharma said the agency attributes 75% of the rise in its shelter census since 2022 to newly arrived migrants entering the homeless services system. The DHS shelter census has increased from about 47,000 people at the start of 2022, when a statewide eviction freeze and several pandemic-related assistance programs were in place, to about 86,000 people today.

Lander said his office was inspired to create the database by a similar project launched by the news site City Limits at the start of 2022, and continuously updated amid the rise in migrants entering the shelter system.

Gothamist has also tracked the sharp rise in evictions over the past two years, following the end of a statewide freeze on most legal lockouts. Marshals completed roughly 12,000 evictions last year, approaching eviction levels from prior to the pandemic, city data shows.

Lander said he would like to drill down further on the experiences of people staying in shelters specifically housing migrants. He said he wants to accurately track exits from those shelters and find where migrants go after mandatory 30- or 60-day move-outs.

“The city is just booting people out with really no attention to and not gathering any information about how they're landing,”