N.Y. Officials Announce Plan to Remove Homeless People From Subways
The plan, which calls for stricter enforcement, also promises to offer more mental-heath services and housing options to people who shelter underground.
By Andy Newman and Dana Rubinstein
Feb. 18, 2022Updated 11:52 a.m. ET
Responding to an increase in crime in the New York City subways and concerns from riders about being harassed by people who shelter on trains, Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Friday that they would no longer allow the city’s subway system to be used for anything but transportation.
The New York Police Department will now stringently enforce the subway’s often flouted rules of conduct, they said. Open drug use and smoking will no longer be tolerated. Any rider found sprawled across subway seats will be escorted off the train and offered help.
“No more just doing whatever you want,” Mr. Adams said. “Those days are over. Swipe your MetroCard, ride the system and get off at your destination. That’s what this administration is saying.”
The new effort, which is detailed in a document released Friday called The Subway Safety Plan, goes into effect next week, Mr. Adams said. The plan also contains measures aimed at connecting people who shelter in the subways to mental-health services and to permanent housing.
The mayor and governor made the joint announcement at a subway station in Lower Manhattan. It comes just over a month after Michelle Alyssa Go, 40, was pushed in front of a train at Times Square and a homeless man with a history of schizophrenia was charged with her murder.
And it follows a year in which the rate of violent crimes in the subway system per million weekday passengers spiked almost across the board compared with 2019, before the pandemic, sowing widespread fear that the system was unsafe.
Transit officials have said that worries about public safety have impeded efforts to draw riders back to a transit system that faces a perilous financial situation. New York City’s economy cannot recover without flourishing subways on which riders feel safe, officials said on Friday.
“People tell me about their fear of using the system,” Mr. Adams said. “And we’re going to ensure that fear is not New York’s reality.”
Felony assaults in the subway were up nearly 25 percent in 2021 compared with 2019, despite the pandemic-fueled drop in ridership.
Thirty people were pushed onto the tracks in 2021, up from 20 in 2019 and nine in 2017, the police said.
“We will state without reservation that our subways exist to move paying customers from one point to another,” the plan reads.
Underscoring the importance of Friday’s announcement, the mayor and governor were joined by the city police commissioner, Keechant Sewell; the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subways, Janno Lieber; and the president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, Tony Utano.
The plan contains a raft of proposals designed to help those who shelter underground — many of whom struggle with mental illness, substance abuse or both — get effective treatment and find permanent housing.
It attempts to address a frequent complaint from advocates and homeless people that mere “outreach,” where a homeless person is typically offered simply a room in a barracks-like group shelter — which he or she typically declines — is insufficient. The plan calls for the creation of about 500 new beds in private rooms.
The plan also promises to send more mental-health professionals into the subway system who are empowered to evaluate and involuntarily hospitalize people who are deemed a danger to themselves or others.
Taking broader aim at the problem of untreated mental illness, the plan raises the need to expand the use of Kendra’s Law, which enables a judge to order someone with mental illness into outpatient treatment.
There are many rivers that feed the sea of homelessness,” Mr. Adams said, “and we’re going to have to dam every river if we are going to address this issue.”
For homeless people who struggle with mental illness, there has long been a shortage of so-called supportive housing, which comes with on-site social services; applying for a slot in supportive housing often involves a bewildering amount of red tape.
The plan promises to expand the availability of supportive housing and reduce “the amount of paperwork it takes to apply.”
The homeless people will just go somewhere else? Yes
Where? Who cares 
