Only 39 NYers Accept Shelter In Six Weeks Of Encampment Sweeps: Data

NEW YORK, NY — Teams clearing hundreds of homeless encampments on New York City's streets only convinced a few dozen people to move to a homeless shelter in six weeks on the job, according to new data.

Only 39 of the 264 homeless New Yorkers offered help during encampment sweeps — or just under 15 percent — accepted a spot in a shelter between when the sweeps began March 18 and May 1, according to data released Tuesday by the Mayor's Office.

The number, though touted as an achievement by the city, did not impress homeless advocates who have long called for the mayor to stop the sweeps, which they have deemed "cruel, pointless, and ineffective."

"These counterproductive sweeps didn’t solve unsheltered homelessness under prior administrations, and they aren’t solving unsheltered homelessness under this administration either," Coalition for the Homeless Policy Director Jacquelyn Simone told Patch Tuesday. "Mayor Adams should cease these sweeps immediately and instead invest in housing and single-occupancy shelter placements to help people move indoors."

Advocates like Simone contend the encampment clean-up only further endangers homeless New Yorkers, who often have nowhere else to go given a fear of city shelters. Of 640 homeless New Yorkers lost their lives last year, 489 of were residing in shelters, according to another organization against the sweeps, VOCAL-NY.

Mayor Eric Adams has presented his controversial clean-up plan as a means to provide better housing for homeless New Yorkers, contending new brochures and repeated visits with homeless New Yorkers will increase those who agree to move to a shelter.

His administration pointed to the new data as an uptick from the start of the sweeps, when only five people accepted help in the first 12 days (Broken down, 39 people accepting help in six weeks represents around 11 people helped every 12 days).

In the entire year before Adams' initiative began, 26 homeless New Yorkers accepted a spot in a shelter during routine encampment cleanings, his office said, though they did not immediately have data on the total number of people teams talked to during that year-long period for comparison.

“I have said since we started this initiative that every New Yorker deserves dignity, and we are demonstrating that this is possible," Adams said Tuesday. "Our teams are working professionally and diligently every day to make sure that every New Yorker living on the street knows they have a better option while ensuring that everyone who lives in or visits our city can enjoy the clean public spaces we all deserve.”

In total, Adams' teams have cleared 710 encampments, some at locations they visited more than once, according to his office.

Meanwhile, activists have taken to blocking some of the makeshift homes from the tear-down teams as a part of mounting protests against the sweeps.

Police sent to help tear down the encampments have not let the efforts go lightly. In one seven-hour East Village standoff, six activists were arrested, along with the leader of the protest, John Grima, who refused to leave his tent, and the encampment was ultimately torn down, according to reports.