Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday unveiled a five-year, $650 million plan to handle homelessness — together with a particular new facility to accommodate and deal with mentally unwell New Yorkers inhabiting the streets and subways.
The proposal — which Metropolis Corridor claimed can be the most important funding ever to fight the Huge Apple’s homelessness disaster — comes after a sequence of scary assaults involving mentally unwell people within the transit system.
“If we want to make New York City the best place to raise a family, we cannot turn our backs on those sleeping on our subways and streets,” Adams stated of his plan included in his 2025 State of The Metropolis handle.
“This investment will allow us to expand support for New Yorkers who are living on our subways, wrestling with serious mental illness, and at risk of entering shelter. Above all, it will help us tackle street homelessness here in New York City.”
His proposal contains opening an “innovative facility” particularly to help homeless mentally unwell New Yorkers, providing psychiatric care and substance abuse therapy in addition to shelter, and serving to safe everlasting housing.
The ability can be run by Well being + Hospitals — the town’s public hospital system — however will probably be positioned in a separate housing facility or shelter, not a hospital.
The proposal additionally contains including 900 “Safe Haven” beds to accommodate homeless New Yorkers and transition them to everlasting housing — bringing the overall to 4,900. And including 100 beds to serve runaway and homeless youth ages 21-24.
The brand new “safe haven” beds can be unfold throughout the town, notably in neighborhoods with a excessive focus of homeless individuals, officers stated.
Suppliers in this system provide supportive providers, together with case administration, psychological well being, and drug abuse therapy.
“This program is a really big deal,” Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor for well being and human providers instructed The Publish.
She stated this system reveals compassion for troubled homeless people but additionally addresses considerations commuters have about subway public security.
“New Yorkers are concerned about people sleeping on the train. It makes people nervous,” Williams-Isom stated. “We don’t think New Yorkers should be afraid to take the subway.”
The mayor has individually known as on Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature to increase the town’s powers to take away mentally unwell New Yorkers from public areas.
Town has been rocked by various latest incidents the place mentally unwell homeless people have dedicated random violent assaults on the subways towards harmless victims, together with others dwelling on the streets.
Debrina Kawam, a 57-year-old Toms River, New Jersey resident who fell into homelessness, was torched to demise on the F prepare in Coney Island final month — allegedly by an unlawful Guatemalan migrant, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, who resided in a metropolis shelter.
The mayor’s workplace stated there are 109,500 adults and kids residing in city-run or accredited emergency shelters, together with 50,900 migrants. Town estimates the three-year invoice for migrant providers will prime $6.6 billion by June 30.
The advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless estimates there are 350,000 who’re with out houses in New York Metropolis when factoring in residents who’re dwelling doubled up or tripled up with kinfolk or mates.
A latest report revealed by the US Division of Housing of City Growth discovered that New York state has the best charge of homelessness per capita than wherever within the nation, a lot of it concentrated within the metropolis — citing the shortage of inexpensive housing provide, excessive rents and the tide of asylum-seekers,
Migrants in emergency shelters “accounted for almost 88% of the increase in sheltered homelessness in New York City last year,” the report stated.
The Adams administration has zeroed in on the 5% of road homeless people who should not in shelters.
For the reason that begin of the mayor’s subway security plan in 2022, greater than 8,000 New Yorkers have been related to shelters with over 750 now in everlasting, inexpensive housing, Williams-Isom stated.
However a report in The Metropolis discovered getting unsheltered individuals who want psychiatric or substance abuse therapy into flats has been a problem.
“Since the start of our administration, we’ve taken unprecedented action to support our most vulnerable by making the largest investment of any administration in addressing street homelessness,” Adams stated.
“Today’s announcement of $650 million in effective strategies to help people experiencing street homelessness — including safe haven beds, psychiatric care for people with severe mental illness, and resources for housing families — is yet another example of our administration’s unparalleled commitment to helping all New Yorkers.”
