New York Metropolis officers will quickly start implementing guidelines to forestall unhoused individuals from looking for shelter on the subway, Mayor Eric Adams introduced Friday. Residents may see modifications as quickly as subsequent week, Adams stated.
"The system just isn't made to be housing," Adams stated Friday at a press convention. "It is made to be transportation and we now have to return again to that fundamental philosophy."
A key element of the plan will direct the NYPD to implement guidelines in opposition to individuals sleeping throughout a number of seats, exhibiting "aggressive" conduct and creating an "unsanitary setting," the mayor's workplace stated in an announcement. The plan, applied in partnership with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, may also require all passengers to depart the prepare and station on the finish of every subway line, and prohibits utilizing the subway for a goal apart from transportation.
Regardless of the modifications, Adams vowed that his administration is "not going to desert our homeless brothers and sisters." The plan additionally requires interventions like increasing town's psychological and bodily heath care companies for unhoused individuals, streamlining the position course of into supportive housing, and creating further drop-in facilities for individuals to spend time indoors.
"This isn't about arresting individuals," Adams stated. "That is about arresting an issue. We're not going to be heavy handed."
Hochul on Friday additionally introduced new investments to deal with homelessness and psychological well being within the state, together with $27.5 million for psychiatric beds statewide and $12 million for 500 further supportive housing beds.
"That is what authorities does," the governor stated. "We handle individuals. We offer the sources and we'll get this carried out."
The announcement comes a day after an individual was stabbed on a New York subway prepare, CBS New York reported. Native police are trying to find a suspect.
"It simply sends shockwaves all through the system," Adams stated Friday, referencing the assault.
It additionally comes after a string of crimes on the subway in latest weeks. A girl was killed final month after a person, who police stated was homeless, pushed her in entrance of an oncoming subway prepare. Over every week later, a person was additionally shoved onto prepare tracks, in keeping with CBS New York. The prepare was capable of cease in time and the sufferer solely suffered minor accidents.
"You possibly can't put a Band-Help on a cancerous sore," Adams stated with reference to homelessness within the metropolis. "That isn't the way you resolve the issue. You should take away the most cancers and begin the therapeutic course of."