Street homelessness on the rise in NYC, despite sweeps, survey shows

The number of homeless New Yorkers staying on the streets and subways is up by nearly 18% this year, despite intensive efforts by Mayor Eric Adams to stop people from bedding down in public spaces, according to an annual point-in-time count conducted in January.

The Homeless Outreach Population Estimate, or HOPE Survey, counted 4,042 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness on Jan. 24, up from 3,439 in last year’s count and 2,376 in 2021. The city’s Department of Social Services, which oversees the Department of Homeless Services, attributed the rise to mild weather and the end of COVID-related interventions, such as the use of federally funded private rooms in commercial hotels, which led to a far lower count earlier in the pandemic.

But the increase occurred a year after Adams made moving homeless New Yorkers off the streets and subways a top priority, through a mix of aggressive enforcement, police-led encampment sweeps and outreach efforts.

Legal Aid Society Homeless Rights Project attorney Josh Goldfein called the point-in-time survey “flawed” and a likely undercount, but said the increase shows Adams’ approach to addressing street homelessness isn’t working.

“Whatever the precise number is, the solution for each of these individuals is well known: a permanent affordable home,” he said. “The city should cease its cruel and useless policy of pushing people out of spaces where they have found refuge and instead offer them what they really need.”

Whatever the precise number is, the solution for each of these individuals is well known: a permanent affordable home.

Josh Goldfein, Legal Aid Society Homeless Rights Project attorney

A report issued last week by City Comptroller Brad Lander found that just three of the 2,308 homeless people who were forcibly removed from encampments between March and November of 2022 ended up in permanent housing.

But DSS Commissioner Molly Wasow Park said the rise was modest given the major increase to the city’s shelter population, which has roughly doubled since the beginning of 2022, and the ongoing efforts to find space for a number of newly arrived immigrants.

“Over this past year, our agency has responded to a massive humanitarian crisis while ensuring that we are effectively delivering on our mission to address homelessness in New York City,” Park said in a statement. “Thanks to our intensified outreach efforts, bold solutions, and vital investments in specialized beds, NYC continues to have one of the lowest rates of unsheltered homelessness of any other major US city.”

New Yorkers sleeping on the sidewalks and subway platforms account for a visible fraction of the city’s unhoused population, including roughly 100,000 people in municipal shelters and an untold number of residents who experience unstable housing and intermittent homelessness.

The federally mandated HOPE count is conducted each year, with volunteers accompanying professional staff and outreach workers to identify street homeless New Yorkers on a single winter night. The results serve as an imprecise marker of the city’s ever-changing street homeless population and factor into federal funding decisions.

Compared to other major American cities, San Francisco and Phoenix included, New York has a relatively low street homeless population — a result of unique “right to shelter” rules that guarantee a temporary bed for anyone who needs one. Adams is asking a judge to suspend that right, citing a strain on the shelter system amid a spike in the number of migrants in need at the same time as rents reach record highs and evictions mount.

Over the past 18 months, the city has opened a number of so-called “low barrier” shelter sites intended to appeal to people staying outdoors. The sites, known as Safe Haven and stabilization shelters, do not have curfews and occasionally provide private or semi-private accommodations.

But moves to permanent housing are plagued by bureaucratic obstacles and neighborhood opposition to new development, adding months or years to project timelines.

The Adams administration last year kicked off a modest pilot program designed to move some people experiencing homelessness from the streets and subways into permanent housing much more quickly.

The Street to Home program has space for around 80 people in city-owned apartment buildings with services provided by the organization Volunteers of America. The initiative allows people to complete their eligibility requirements and paperwork from a private apartment with a door that locks, instead of the street or group shelter.

Participants and advocates have called on the city to expand the program, which provides an actual solution to street homelessness: housing.

Angel Quiles, a tenant in one of the program’s Brownsville locations, said he spent most of the last five years sleeping on the D and F trains before an outreach worker helped him achieve a pathway to housing.

“It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done for myself,” Quiles told Gothamist earlier this year.