Transcript: Mayor Adams Announces New “Co-Response” Operation Focused on Serving More New Yorkers in Need on New York City Subways

October 10, 2024

Commissioner Molly Wasow Park, Department of Social Services: Good afternoon. I'm Molly Wasow Park. I'm the commissioner of the city's Department of Social Services, which includes the Department of Homeless Services. Thank you all for being here today. I'm joined here today by of course, Mayor Eric Adams, Interim Police Commissioner Donlon, NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Kinsella, the New York City H&H CEO and President Dr. Mitch Katz, Department of Homeless Services Administrator Joslyn Carter, Brian Stettin, the administration's senior advisor on severe mental illness, and our incredible outreach worker with the Department of Homeless Services, Shawn Tish.

Before I turn it over to Mayor Adams to talk about the new initiative we're here to announce, I want to share a little bit about the progress we've made, strengthening pathways to permanent housing for New Yorkers experiencing unsheltered homelessness on the city streets and subways.

Thanks to vital investments, including the robust expansion of outreach services and specialized beds like safe havens and stabilization beds, DHS connected more than 2,000 New Yorkers who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness on city subways and streets to permanent housing. I really want to pause on that number. That is 2,000 people who a year ago, two years ago, might have been sleeping on the streets, sleeping on the subway, they now have a home of their own and a place to live and thrive.

We have doubled outreach staffing since the start of this administration and brought about almost 1,200 new safe haven and stabilization beds online. And we're on track to open hundreds more this winter. Our tremendous DHS and not-for-profit outreach workers are out there around the clock, rain or shine, engaging New Yorkers in need and connecting them to services across the five boroughs. We are so grateful to every frontline staffer at DHS and across our not-for-profit partner network.

From outreach workers to case managers and shelters, each of whom have a significant role to play in helping thousands of New Yorkers take that first important step to stabilize their lives and ultimately move into permanent homes. But we absolutely cannot do this work alone. Interagency collaboration is critical to ensuring that we are reaching every New Yorker in need and equipping our teams and agency partners to meaningfully engage and support some of our most vulnerable New Yorkers, especially in the subway system.

So I really want to thank our agency partners here today at the New York Police Department and the Health and Hospitals Corporation for continuing to work with us to strengthen these vital collaborations. Again, thank you all for being here to hear from us about this important work and I will now turn it over to Mayor Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much, commissioner, and for what you have done throughout not only COVID, but also as we deal with the real issue of those who experience severe mental health on our subway system.

I remember this station very well as a transit police officer patrolling here and we dealt with a homeless issue at that time as well. We've never gotten it right. It's time to get it right and that's what Brian has brought to the team and I cannot thank you enough, Brian, for your commitment and dedication to dealing with this issue. And it's not a one size fits all and it's not a one agency problem.

It is a full agency and administration approach and that is what we're going to continue to do to use every aspect and every tool that we have to address what is happening with the severe mental health issue we're seeing on our subway system and in our streets. And really hats off to First Deputy [Commissioner] Tania Kinsella. This is her brainchild. She realized that we should do more without having a heavy handed police approach and she understood that helping the traditional methods that we were using, we need to pull it another level. And commissioner, we thank you for your focus on this issue, seeing how it impacts passengers and how it impacts men and women that use the subway system every day in our law enforcement community.

So I'm glad to be joined by this team that's here today as we continue to push forward this important initiative. It is what makes New York City possible when we bring together all of our entities to solve an amazing problem, a Herculean task and problem in this city. New Yorkers must be safe on the subway system. Over 4 million, 4 million riders use the system every day to get to their place of employment, to school, to visit their loved ones. This is a crucial lifeblood of our city and it's imperative that New York City remains not only the safest big city in America, but the safest city in America and our subway system must lead the way.

Nine straight months of decreasing crime and not only in our city, but in our subway system from the first spike back in January, we continue to move ahead. We are on the right track. This is what I always say that we will focus on as the mayor of this city. Year to date, crime is down 5.1 percent with an 8.7 percent decrease in September alone. When we launched our subway safety plan with the governor, we knew we were in the right direction.

Since that plan in February, 2022, 7,800 New Yorkers have been connected to shelter with over 640 in permanent affordable housing. And many of these folks have a host of issues that they face daily, including unmet basic needs, such as shelter, employment, food, and clothing, and sometimes severe mental health. Our outreach teams work around the clock to get these New Yorkers the help they need and the help they deserve. That is why today in partnership with the New York City Police Department and the Department of Homeless Services, we are proud to announce the PATH program, an acronym for Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness.

And as the weather changes, many people start to use the subway system as their primary place of housing. That needs to change. This program brings together teams of trained nurses and outreach staff from the Department of Homeless Services, along with the NYPD Transit Police, who conduct co-response outreach overnight at subway station across Manhattan, because we found from our work that many people use Manhattan as their central location, and we want to focus on where the people are.

While in the field, the PATH teams engage everyone they see who appears to be unsheltered and offer to them support. And we're already seeing major results. Really excited about these numbers since PATH began in August 29th. Less than two months ago, the teams have made contact with over 1,500 unhoused New Yorkers and delivered services to over 500 people. That's over 500 New Yorkers who receive vital resources like shelter, clothing, food, or medical attention. This is the compassionate thing to do. It's the right thing to do.

We will be expanding the program in the months to come so we can reach even more New Yorkers in need and keep all New Yorkers safe. And we want to be clear on this. We are saying in no way that people who are dealing with these needs should be in jail. Just the opposite. They don't deserve to be ignored either. We've ignored them for far too long. We've walked past them. We waited until they committed an act that will cause a level of criminality and we have housed them incorrectly. We're changing that direction. The PATH program will supplement, not replace, SCOUT, the Successful Response Initiative.

We operate with the MTA to support people struggling with severe mental illness, as well as supplement our ongoing nightly end-of-the-line efforts and our entire subway safety plans. This continues to be the top of the minds of New Yorkers. They're concerned about it. We hear it often. It creates real safety, public safety issues, and it impacts our ridership in the subway system and the employees of the system. Just last week, or just this week, an MTA worker was violently assaulted at a stop in Brooklyn.

Fortunately, our officers were right there to apprehend the suspect. This illustrates why it's so important for us to move forward with this agenda. I communicated with the union president of the member, and I'll be stopping to see him in the hospital, and he's in our prayers, him and his family. But far too often, we've seen this type of assault, this type of actions or behavior that jeopardizes safety of New Yorkers. And in no way we are saying that the overwhelming number of crimes carried out in the subway system are carried out by those who deal with severe mental health illness.

But it is wrong to allow people to stay in the system and not give them the care that they deserve. And we're really proud of everything from our PATH to our SCOUT to our End of the Line is laser-focused on giving people the care that they deserve. Job well done. Commissioner, I want to thank you and all of our partners here and Commissioner Donlon for really having the transit police focus on this issue in a manner that we believe it should be focused on. Thank you very much.

Interim Police Commissioner Thomas Donlon: Okay, thank you, Mayor. Good evening. In its first month in office, Mayor Adams announced his subway safety plan, which has become the blueprint for reducing crime and improving service in our transit system. Under Mayor Adams' leadership, crime in New York City is down for the ninth straight month, and crime continues to go down in our subways as well.

Now, at the mayor's direction, we are continuing to address transit homelessness. First Deputy Commissioner Kinsella has been working intently on this issue. And as you'll see today, it's making a real difference. She recognized the need to improve communication and to bring agencies and service providers together. Our subways must be safe and accessible to everyone. And the program announced today is a major, major step forward in that effort. I'll turn it over now to First Deputy Commissioner Kinsella for more details. Thank you.

First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella, Police Department: Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, PC. Thank you, Molly. Good evening, everyone, and thank you again. I want to start by talking about the power of teamwork. In this city, nothing gets done alone. Whether it's keeping our streets and our subways safe or helping New Yorkers in need, it takes a unified effort. That's why we are here and excited to announce our PATH program. Under the mayor's direction, D.M. [Williams]-Isom, Joslyn Carter, Brian Stettin, NYPD Chief Terri Tobin, and retired NYPD Chief Michael Kemper, and so many others worked tirelessly to bring this life-changing initiative to New Yorkers.

This PATH program unites city agencies to address both homelessness and public safety in our subway system. Each team consists of one nurse, two service coordinators, and four officers led by a supervisor. These teams operate in three zones across Manhattan, focusing on areas with the highest concentration of unhoused individuals. These teams fall out of the same location, and their shared mission is very clear, to provide help and care to those in need. By combining these efforts in the NYPD with healthcare professionals and social workers, we are addressing both immediate health needs and long-term social challenges. And not only that, we ensure individuals receive ongoing support beyond the initial encounter with follow-ups.

Since the PATH launched on August 29th, like the mayor said, we have already made an impact. Our teams have connected with 1,500 New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, and placing more than 500 into shelters. We're not just here to offer temporary relief. We're delivering life-changing support. And as the colder months approach, PATH will continue to play an even more vital role in helping our fellow New Yorkers. So this is what it means when we work together as a team for the better of our city. Thank you, and have a good evening.

Commissioner Wasow Park: Thank you. I'd now like to turn it over to Brian Stettin, the administration's senior advisor on severe mental illness. Brian has been spearheading efforts to strengthen the city's interagency response to cases that require a very comprehensive healthcare response.

Brian Stettin, Senior Advisor, Severe Mental Illness: Thank you so much, Commissioner Park. So I'd like to speak to you about co-response. This crisis response model you've heard something about this evening that really lies at the heart of this new PATH program, as well as our SCOUT collaboration with the MTA and PD that the mayor mentioned.

If anyone has the impression that this announcement today is just about more outreach teams, I would like to explain to you why this is actually a very big deal. Co-response is the practice, as you've heard, of pairing police officers with clinical professionals, behavioral health professionals, and having them stick closely together to deescalate potentially dangerous situations and connect people in crisis with appropriate services. It's a model that is steadily gaining traction nationally, and with PATH, we are making it a cornerstone of our efforts here in New York City to help folks who are taking refuge in our public spaces to gain a foothold on stability.

The co-response model is about synergy between the two types of professionals involved. On the clinical side, we know that in certain environments, our nurses and outreach workers are able to engage more deeply and meaningfully with the individuals who need their help the most when they feel safe in those interactions, and having a police partner right there with them who they know has their back allows them to lean in and to really fulfill that mission of leaving nobody behind.

On the other side of that coin, right on the police side of it, we have laws that empower police officers to make decisions about whether someone should be brought to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation, but it is obviously unfair to expect a police officer to perform that specific function at the level of a trained mental health professional or to be as successful in ultimately persuading hospital doctors to admit that person to the hospital as a patient.

So by taking police out of that awkward position that we are by necessity often forced to put them in, we allow police officers to really focus on what they do best, that difficult work of maintaining order and safety in precarious circumstances. You know, it's frustrating sometimes to hear some of the discourse around crisis response, which can give you the impression that we have to starkly choose between a model that takes police out of the equation entirely. And on the other hand, you know, the old way of sending police into crisis situations with no support or assistance from mental health professionals. This is a false choice.

And that's not to say there aren't situations where we in fact do best by having a purely clinical response. We're very proud of our B-HEARD program where we are trying to identify through the triage that 911 operators do, those calls that in fact are not such dire emergencies that they require police presence, that we can send purely clinical teams of peers and outreach workers. And we're achieving some really terrific results with that. But the critical work that we have to do here in the subway is very different.

You know, unlike a B-HEARD call where we are responding to a call for assistance and we have that opportunity to gather information and let our team know what they're being sent into, when we have our teams out here, and you know, in Times Square at 3 a.m., they're going to encounter the full range of mental health crisis situations. The great majority of them are gonna involve people who are not violent at all, and we can absolutely have the police officers kind of step back and let the clinicians do our thing.

But there are also some situations where you better believe it's a good thing that we've got a couple of cops there on the platform. And that is why this administration feels so strongly that there is a place for co-response in our larger strategy of fulfilling this challenge that Mayor Adams laid out for us two years ago. This is part of a top-to-bottom culture change across city government to end, in the mayor's words, those days of walking away and looking away. And we're going to see it through. So, thank you very much.

Commissioner Wasow Park: Thank you, Brian. I am certainly biased, but I believe that being an outreach worker is one of the hardest jobs that there is in New York City. So I am particularly pleased and proud to introduce one of our DHS outreach workers, Shawn Tish, who is part of one of these co-response teams. He's been with the agency for two years and brings great empathy and compassion to the work, and we're so very grateful to have him.

Shawn Tish, Outreach Worker, Department of Homeless Services: Thank you, Commissioner Park, mayor. So my name's Shawn Tish. As she said, I've been with the agency for two years. I'm a crisis coordinator, community coordinator. I began my journey with DHS, not as a staff member, but as a client.

Many years ago, I was suffering from some of the same issues that our clients have today. And by, with, and through DHS and their providers, I've come full circle, back to helping people like me. I got my associate's degree at BMCC, started here to go anywhere, got my BA at Hunter College, and their motto is, "Mine is the care of the future." I take that very seriously.

I'm proud of the work that we do at DHS, and I'm very honored to be part of the collaboration with NYPD and the PATH co-response initiative. Homelessness doesn't have a face. It can happen to anyone. I mean, there's so many different reasons, fire, natural disaster, eviction, illegal eviction, unmitigated substance abuse, mental illness. People have nervous breakdowns and end up on the street.

No matter what the reason for their homelessness, we provide services with empathy and respect. It's very often a delicate dance between us and our clients. Sometimes they're not ready to go in, but the respect and empathy that we give opens the door for a future placement. The work's dynamic and challenging. We work with vulnerable populations. I've seen a lot of things. I've, you know, more than once brought tears to my eyes to see what's unfolding in front of me.

At DHS, I'm part of Street Homeless Solutions. It's a small, little unit. We're very tight-knit. We communicate with each other. We're like a family over there. And we utilize every tool in our toolbox to get people inside. Everybody, without question, does their very best. I know all of them, and they work very hard and diligently to provide the services that people so desperately need. We value our vital interagency partnerships with NYPD. We, Chief Liu, I mean, sorry, Captain Liu, I apologize, has been very gracious to us, very communicative with us. And together, we're doing the work that needs to be done. Thank you.

Question: Will the Interim Police Commissioner be here to oversee this new program, or is he stepping down, as the courts have said today, on this new clear-out?

Mayor Adams: I must have said this 1,000 times, I'll do it 1,001. When we announce personnel movement, we always let you know. And so, the police commissioner's standing right next to us right now, doing his job. We cannot thank him enough for coming in and moving to stabilize. And any time there's personnel changes made, we'll announce it and let you know.

[Crosstalk.]

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Well, I think our outreach worker laid it out. Oftentimes, you read about what happens after an incident, or you will see a video. You have the luxury of hitting pause. You have the luxury of hitting rewind. You have the luxury of saying, okay, maybe I would have done it differently. That is not how it plays out in reality. In reality, and I go based on my experience as a former police officer in the subway system, the reality when someone calls you because someone is acting in an erratic fashion, or the number of contacts you have to make before someone is willing to say, I need help, it's extremely challenging.

And to have a former homeless person that is now part of our outreach team, he or she understands the dynamics and the complexity of this. You had a transit worker this week who merely woke someone up, and he was stabbed several times. He didn't have time to call for individuals to come and try to talk this person into service. He didn't have time to call, B-HEARD. So we can't be philosophical when you're dealing with a real life interaction that is extremely dangerous. You have to make these calls in split seconds. Do you have time to get that outreach worker? Do you have time to get that police officer there?

And that's why what First Deputy Commissioner Kinsella is doing, we're adding to our proactive approach to make sure that we can get to people before we get those incidents. That is the heart of this problem. It is very challenging dealing with a person that needs help. And then you add on to that if they have severe mental health illness, that becomes even more challenging.

Question: I am just on the online SCOUT program and it's helping a lot of people that are homeless and homeless. I'm not really a transit person, but I'm also curious, are you going to be supporting these others as well?

First Deputy Commissioner Kinsella: So this, thank you for your question. This is new. This is something that's never been done before. We've never all been housed. The agencies have never been housed together, meaning that we start our tours at eight o'clock at night and we end at four o'clock in the morning. And during those hours, we did our research. Those hours are the times that's crucial for unhoused individuals. So with that being said, we've never had all the city agencies plus the NYPD together in one building, one office, one space, go out, one mission, shared together.

Stettin: Sure, and I'll just add to what the deputy commissioner said that there is a conceptual similarity between this and SCOUT and that we are doing co-response the same way SCOUT does. There is really a need to be doing this in lots of places at once at all times of day. So there's a difference in terms of when these programs are operating, right? We have SCOUT operating in the daytime hours, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is mostly an overnight program. And we also have a little bit of a different focus, right?

Because the SCOUT teams are operating at times when there are other outreach teams on the ground, they are really kind of hyper-focused on finding people in psychiatric crisis who are in need of evaluation at a hospital and trying to persuade them to come to the hospital voluntarily and making hard decisions to bring them to the hospital when certain criteria are met. That's their kind of laser focus. And when they encounter people with other kinds of needs, they tend to hand those off to other teams.

Whereas our PATH teams are really trying to engage with the homeless more generally with bringing services to bear for a broader range of needs. And so people who are just in need of shelter for the night, people who may be in need of drug treatment or less urgent medical care that isn't requiring a hospital are also folks that our PATH teams are going to be able to help.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Stettin: In some circumstances, there are going to be people who will be in need of psychiatric evaluation because they are found to be a danger to themselves or others while exhibiting psychiatric symptoms. We've got legal criteria that have to be met.

And in those situations, we're doing everything we can to persuade that person to come to the hospital voluntarily. That's often not possible because a cruel aspect of severe mental illness is often lack of insight. A person doesn't realize they have an illness or a need for treatment. And so just in the name of an interest of compassion, we're going to oftentimes have to bring people to hospitals involuntarily as a way to start them on that recovery journey. So yeah, that is something both teams are going to be empowered to do when appropriate and necessary.

Commissioner Wasow Park: If I could just expand on that for a minute, DHS has been doing 24-7 outreach for many years. It's an incredibly important part of what we do and continues to be an incredibly important part of what we do.

By bringing together this interagency collaboration, we think we can strengthen and build on what we are already doing. And I think building on what the first deputy said, the fact that it is a consistent team of people who are out there each night, that it combines social services, healthcare and law enforcement really matters. We talk a lot at DHS about meeting clients where they are and that it is a trust relationship. Having that trust between the outreach team and I'm defining outreach team broadly here, that really matters.

Absolutely, we have to connect people to healthcare. Overwhelmingly, the number of transports that we do to hospitals are voluntary. As Brian said, involuntary removals are a part of the toolbox, but they are relatively infrequent, about 20 percent of what we do. Our goal is to build trust and to connect people to the care that they need.

Question: So, there are certainly people who do outreach to homeless people in some way to say that the presence of police really does flagellate to public attention in some cases, making people not want to engage with police officers on each team here. And then just from a practical perspective, if you're ushering people out of the subway and not letting them sleep here, does it make it harder for the team to find people that they're trying to engage with?

Mayor Adams: So, let's go to that first part. Let's… I am sure that MTA worker that was stabbed several times was happy the police was there. Was happy the police was there. I'm sure people who are almost pushed to the subway tracks are happy police are there. There's a delicate balance. It would be irresponsible to have civilians respond to every situation. That would be irresponsible.

This could be very dangerous situations. And when the police does, when the police that's there, if they're not needed, they can take a step back. They won't have to interact if they're not needed. So, it's not about having the police presence always. You assess the situation to determine if the police is needed. You want to add something, Molly?

Commissioner Wasow Park: Yeah, I think it really goes again to what I was saying about the relationship between the people on the team, right? The outreach workers, the clinicians, the police officers build a working relationship and they can figure out that dynamic about when it is most important to lead with a nurse, when it is most important to lead with an outreach worker, when it is most important to lead with a police officer. The goal is always to connect people to services and I think we have a really strong track record from DHS's existing programs and with the first month of PATH that we are able to connect people to transitional housing and ultimately to permanent housing.

Question: And then how do you find people if you're ushering them out of the subway? How do you, doesn't it make it harder for outreach teams to find people if you're ushering them out of the subway?

Mayor Adams: No, we're not ushering out. We're giving people services they deserve. The subway is not a place to house New Yorkers. The streets are not places to house New Yorkers. We made it clear that previous administrations may have just ignored it, but we made it clear. People cannot have a dignified place to live in the subway system, under a railroad, on the side of a highway.

We are not going to allow that to exist. We're going to give people the services they need. This is not a safe place to sleep, to live, to raise a family. We're not going to succumb to that belief and some people believe that they should be allowed to sleep here. They should be allowed to sleep on the sidewalks or on the highways. We don't subscribe to that belief.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry? Permanent? It's, listen, a permanency should depend on success. We believe you do pilot projects and pilot programs to determine is it successful. Some people get wedded and if it's not being successful, we should not continue. These are taxpayers' dollars and this is a taxpayer's time and so if it's success, we will do an analysis and we will expand, but it has to be proven to be success like we're seeing success in SCOUT. Our early numbers are showing the number of people we interact with, the number of people we got services for. We're seeing success. Now we have to sustain that success.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Yes, and that's, we want to see, Manhattan is the best testing ground because so many people come to Manhattan to stay on the subway system. For whatever reason, they feel as though there are services that are here in Manhattan, access to other items they need. Manhattan has always been a magnet for those who are dealing with temporary or permanent homelessness situations. So we're going to start here and then we're going to identify from our end of line exercises, Coney Island and other places to see about the expansion, but this is the place that we have to prove that it's correct.

Question: I want to talk about a fire in public that transferred [inaudible.] In that situation, the man who was arrested for it did not come out and these officers were literally right there. In case you look at the data, most of the time the people that I talk to are worried about their safety. I think you're talking to community members who are not in the business. What are you saying to them?

Mayor Adams: Our goal is to protect everyone in this system that utilize our system as well as all New Yorkers. And I was part of the initiative in Albany where we passed legislation to turn into a felony when you assault a transit worker. I know how challenging it is in this system. I have been in this system. I know what it is for a transit worker that is assaulted, that is harmed, that is disrespected.

So we have an obligation and responsibility to ensure their safety. And I agreed with the transit workers. I stood with them for years to make sure that we create a safe environment for them. It's horrific that you're doing your job and to be stabbed multiple times as we saw what happened this week. And our hearts go out to the family. Our job is to do what we have been doing, bringing down crime, identifying dangerous people in our system, and bringing them to justice. We're going to continue to do that.

Question: My understanding was when social workers approach someone and offer them help, if they say no, then they have to move on. So what tools do you have that you really can persuade people, social workers, to make themselves feel safe?

Commissioner Wasow Park: So our goal is really to, and our strategy is really to recognize what somebody might need. Somebody might be willing to take a placement. And one of the things that we are trying to do is really focus on having a range of placements. Somebody who is unsheltered but considers themselves to be a resident of a given community isn't going to go far away.

So we are focused on making sure that we have low barrier beds in communities all around the city. We opened our first one, for example, in the financial district a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful building. But we're also able to meet other needs, right? Offer basic medical care. Sometimes what somebody needs is wound care or something else, right? Being able to provide some basic services and that, over time, we think, and know, from our experience, can really build trust and that ultimately that can result in a placement.

Question: If they say no, that they don't want your help, can you force them to do that?

[Crosstalk.]

Mayor Adams: I think our outreach worker, I think that he said it best. Building that trust, repeated interaction, being familiar with the face. It's layers and layers and layers. And I would really encourage many of you who covered this, and if this is part of your beat, is to come out with one of these outreach workers and see the challenge of, day after day, building that trust until you get to a yes. Those 500 was not instant. Dealing with people in this environment that number one, many don't know they need help. Number two, they have lost faith in the system. It takes someone like an outreach worker with previous experience of homelessness to really encourage people to say, I'm going to trust again. And that's what we're doing. And you know, we're not gonna know if we got it right until we implement the procedure and try. This administration is not afraid of failing because we have been succeeding in so many other areas. We're gonna continue to do that. Thank you very much.

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