Mayor Adams on Thursday touted the outcomes of a program aimed toward getting homeless folks out of the subway system.
Launched in fall 2023, the Subway Co-Response Outreach, or SCOUT, program employs “co-response” groups of law enforcement officials, nurses and social employees. The groups have had 11,000 interactions with folks on the trains, with 3,000 of these encounters leading to connections to short-term housing, meals, garments, medical care and removals from the system, the mayor stated at a press convention on the thirty fourth St.-Herald Sq. station.
Police additionally eliminated about 900 folks from the system and issued 290 summonses, he stated.
“This is making sure people can ride the train safely day or night,” Adams stated. “And so we want to be clear on this. We’re not saying those who are unhoused and in need of support are the primary source of crime in our subways. We don’t want that to be the interpretation. It adds to the feeling of [being] unsafe. We’ve driven down crime, but we hear New Yorkers say over and over again, they feel unsafe.”
NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta and Suzanne Miles-Gustave, deputy mayor for Well being and Human Providers, stand beside Mayor Eric Adams as he speaks throughout a press convention within the thirty fourth St.-Herald Sq. subway station on Thursday, March 20, 2025, in New York Metropolis. (Barry Williams/ New York Every day Information)
The mayor emphasised numbers exhibiting a 28% year-to-date lower in subway crime — which comes after President Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened in a letter Tuesday to withhold or redirect federal funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority until it might probably show it’s lowering violent crime and homelessness within the subway system.
“We continue to make progress on our goal of bringing down crime,” Adams stated, “and have achieved record achievements for subway safety in recent months.”
However mayoral challenger state Sen. Zellnor Myrie stated the mayor’s not doing sufficient, arguing that transit felony assaults are nonetheless up 65% from earlier than the pandemic.
“I take the train every day,” Myrie stated, “and as any of my fellow straphangers know, our transit system is not as safe as [it] needs to be. Now is not the time for Mayor Adams to be applauding himself for half measures.”
Initially Revealed: March 20, 2025 at 5:27 PM EDT
