Subway Homelessness To Be Tackled By New Task Force, MTA Says

NEW YORK — A new task force will create a plan to quickly drive down the number of homeless people on New York City's subways, the MTA pledged Wednesday. The panel is an apparent response to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's demand for a plan to address the impact of homelessness on public transit.

Once it is empaneled, the task force will churn out a plan within 30 days to significantly reduce homelessness and panhandling in the subway system by the end of the year, with a focus on additional resources and alternative housing, the MTA said.

The group currently comprises MTA Managing Director Ronnie Hakim, Chief Safety Officer Patrick Warren, NYPD Transit Chief Edward Delatorre, a representative of the MTA Police and another rep from the state's Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

"Homelessness is a growing problem on the subway, with a growing impact," Hakim said in a statement. "Through this Task Force we’re going to bring together a broad and empowered group that will help us to develop an expedited plan to keep our customers and workers safe and our trains moving — while providing much needed resources and assistance to this vulnerable population."

The task force will start its work amid growing concern from transit officials about the number of homeless people in the subways and their effect on service. The subway's homeless population jumped 23 percent in the past year to 2,178 in January, and the number of service disruptions caused by them has reportedly more than tripled over the last decade.

The MTA relies on a nonprofit contractor, the Bowery Residents Committee, to provide homeless people with services at transit hubs such as Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. But the nonprofit only does a fraction of the work required under its contract and its staffers were spotted ignoring homeless people seeking help, according to an audit that state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released Tuesday.

The new task force will review the best techniques for reaching out to homeless people and examine the potential benefits of creating a homeless outreach office within the transit authority itself, the MTA said.

The group will also look at new metrics for measuring homelessness, communication with customers, updates to subway rules and enforcement of those rules, the MTA said.

The task force does not currently have any members representing nonprofit groups that provide homeless services or advocacy groups representing homeless people. But more members will be named in the coming days who will likely include representatives of those kinds of organizations, MTA Communications Director Tim Minton said.

The task force's initial membership comes from agencies that can further criminalize homeless people and "shuffle people around" but none that can do anything to assauge the problem of homelessness itself, according to Giselle Routhier, the policy director of the Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy group.

"In general it’s pretty baffling," Routhier said. "I think the folks that have been announced so far in terms of who’s on the panel do not have the power to influence the policies that are actually going to reduce homelessness in New York City, namely housing."

The MTA says homeless people are increasingly using the subway system for shelter rather than transportation. In the agency's view, allowing them to stay in the transit system poses a risk for both the homeless and riders. And the prevalence of panhandling in the subways "can create a challenge in distinguishing the homeless from con artists," the MTA said in a news release.

The task force is just the latest government effort to tackle subway homelessness. Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration rolled out an initiative last month to have police officers connect homeless people in the system to shelter and other services instead of giving them tickets for low-level infractions.