At her State of the NYPD address last month, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch charged that the City’s subway system is “not a homeless shelter” and pledged to clean up the trains. Yet straphangers say they are riding with many unhoused individuals suffering in plain sight, seemingly ignored by the city.
Tisch outlined on Jan. 30 a plan that would see the department address quality-of-life issues, such as those sleeping on subway benches and smoking onboard train cars, by creating a new quality-of-life division and expanding mental health training.
“We want this message to be very clear: Our officers will not simply walk by someone who is violating the law and disrupting passengers. We are going to correct the condition,” Tisch said. “Our subway trains and platforms are not homeless shelters, they are not psychiatric hospitals. And as a city, we have a moral duty to provide services to people who need them.”
While NYPD sources report that this new squad has not yet been dispatched to fully take on the subterranean standard of living, they say they are putting an emphasis on tackling these issues.
Still, as snow falls over the Big Apple and temperatures plunge, commuters say many undomiciled New Yorkers continue to retreat onto subway cars to keep warm — and in doing so, have turned seats into makeshift beds.
amNewYork Metro investigated the claims in Manhattan over the course of several days and found, even during early morning rush hour, many passengers sitting across from homeless individuals stretched across seats — many dressed in rags or reeking of decay.
Straphangers we spoke to say that something constructive needs to be done to help all those involved. While not looking to demonize or demoralize the city’s most vulnerable, subway riders hope the homeless can get the help they need, and that the city provides it quickly.
“A few weeks ago we all had to get off the 7 train because there was this woman vomiting profusely. Clearly, she was on some kind of drug and couldn’t get up,” subway rider Emma Ramos said. “It was sad, because clearly she needed help. You had two groups of riders, one who wanted to help, and the other was just screaming at her that they had places to go.”
With people at their lowest point suffering from mental health issues and substance abuse issues, commuters told amNewYork Metro that they worry this could lead to dangerous situations.
“New York has done a disservice to the people that are dealing with mental health issues and the mental health population, and they’ve forced them to feel unsafe,“ Maine Anders said. “It creates an environment where everyone feels unsafe.”
Although the NYPD quality-of-life division has yet to patrol the underground, cops say they still have been attempting to remove individuals from napping on trains, which they charge has yielded important safety results.
On Feb. 3, cops say 25-year-old Matthew Leone allegedly sexually assaulted several teenage girls in Flushing as they walked to school. The teens alerted their teacher, and special victims detectives started hunting for him. However, later that afternoon, officers said they found him lying across multiple seats at the Flushing-Main Street station on the 7 line. Police say they were only able to find him so fast thanks to addressing quality of life issues.
They also say focusing on these infractions has a big impact on the overall crime.
Pointing to the troubled Roosevelt Avenue area in Queens, cops report that officers made 985 arrests in the 90 enforcement period and issued 11,831 summons. As a result, since the start of the year, felony assaults have dropped by 41%. The NYPD says it also wants to take this method below ground.
