Critics Of Encampment Sweeps Partner With Mayor On New Outreach Plan

NEW YORK, NY — The very advocates who criticized Mayor Eric Adams for sending teams to clear homeless encampments have partnered with the city on a new outreach plan — though they haven't convinced the mayor to stop his own.

Civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, Coalition for the Homeless founder Robert Hayes and other advocates announced Tuesday that they will work with the city to set up new volunteer teams aimed at helping "hard to reach" homeless New Yorkers get off the streets.

The teams will make weekly visits offering services to homeless New Yorkers and include volunteers, formerly homeless people and, unlike the city teams, no police officers, officials said.

"We’re going to lean into the things we agree on," Adams said. "We need folks who have gone through this before to help us reaching that hard-to-reach population, particularly with mental health issues. They’re going to bring an extra layer."

The new approach, called Street Homeless Advocacy Project (SHAP), will kick off as a pilot program in August in several spots in Manhattan and the Bronx where New Yorkers experiencing homelessness are known to congregate, Siegel said.

It will not mean an end to the mayor's own controversial approach to street homelessness, which has spurred tense stand-offs and protests across the city as teams tear down hundreds of makeshift homes.

Only 39 of the 264 homeless New Yorkers offered help during the encampment sweepsaccepted a spot in a shelter between when the sweeps began March 18 and May 1, the latest data sent out by the city. The mayor on Tuesday touted the fact that 1,700 New Yorkers have accepted help this year another program targeting homeless New Yorkers on the subway system.

Siegel, one of many advocates who have spoken against the raids, said the new program won't mean and end to pushing back on the mayor's approach.

"Hopefully I can prove to the mayor that the encampment raids are a mistake ... I still think he’s wrong on that, and we’ll keep pushing ," Siegel said.

The homeless outreach teams were among 81 recommendations Siegel and a social justice commission made to the mayor earlier this year.

But not all advocates agreed it was the best way to go.

"We don't have a shortage of outreach, we have a shortage of transitional and permanent affordable housing that is safe, dignified, and operated using evidence-based low-threshold practices," nonprofit Housing Works said in a statement Tuesday, noting that the mayor cancelled their own proposal to build a facility in Chinatown.

The SHAP program will receive only training help from the city and no government funding, a move Siegel said will hopefully create more flexibility and trust among those living on the street.

The teams will undergo a three-hour training and head out every Thursday between 7 and 9 p.m. The hope is to prove its success and expand the program citywide, Siegel said.

"We think by doing the without government funding — the bureaucracies and the regulations — we think we’ll be free to do what we have to do," Siegel said. "Every one of our teams, ideally, will have a former homeless person who will be able to say to the person on the street, 'I’ve been there I understand.’"

They come at a critical time for the city's homelessness crisis, which the mayor said this week has become even more crowded given 2,800 people seeking asylum in the city looking for a spot.

Adams asked the federal government Tuesday to send more resources for the asylum seekers, though some homeless advocates criticized the mayor for blaming longtime problems in the shelter system on the new group.