via Associated Press
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UNITED STATES – “The network is not made to accommodate, but to transport” people. Here is the message of the mayor of New York Eric Adams, who pledged on Friday February 19 to drive out of the gigantic subway network the countless homeless people who survive there.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, rates of delinquency and extreme poverty have increased in New York City, and in particular in the metro, without however reaching the levels of the 1980s-90s. 1,300 people would find refuge in the metro at night, according to the New York Times.
Elected in November on a crime-fighting platform, Democratic but center-right mayor Eric Adams, an African-American former police officer, said he had instructed police forces and city social workers to evict anyone would take refuge in train carriages, in corridors or on platforms.
Refer homeless people to shelters or hospitals
“People tell me they’re scared in the metro. We are going to make sure that this fear is not the reality of New York,” said Eric Adams, reports the New York Times. “People won’t do what they want anymore,” he told a news conference. “It’s over. Validate your card, travel and get off at your destination. That’s what this administration is telling you,” he added. the Guardian specifies that the agents will not have to encourage, but force the New Yorkers to leave the train.
The councilor, who took office on January 1 and had to respond to a succession of assaults and murders by firearm, also promised that the New York police (NYPD) would crack down on smokers and drug addicts in the subway.
The platforms and trains of the New York subway – with aging infrastructure – have been frequented since the pandemic by a number of homeless people who can annoy travelers more or less aggressively, according to municipal authorities.
Measures are planned, according to Eric Adams, so that social workers and police can direct the homeless to shelters or hospitals. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul said alongside her that she would call for the creation of reception centers and 500 additional beds in a megalopolis of nine million people with deep socio-economic inequalities.
25% more crimes in the metro
“Our goal is not to arrest people, but to solve a problem. (…) It is cruel and inhumane to allow homeless people to live in the metro and unfair to paying passengers or workers, who deserve a clean, orderly and safe place. The time when we kept our heads in the sand in the face of this growing problem is over,” said the mayor.
If the announcement of new places in shelters was warmly welcomed, the zero tolerance of the police is not unanimous. Shelly Nortz, a member of a homeless advocacy group, fears that this new measure criminalizes the homeless and the mentally ill.
According to the NYPD, there were 488 homicides in 2021 in the city, up slightly from the sharp increase in 2020 (468 homicides compared to 319 in 2019). Violent crimes have increased by 25% in the subway between 2019 and 2021. But all crimes in the subway represent only 2% of all crimes committed in the gigantic city with five districts (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island).
In January, Michelle Go, a 40-year-old Asian American, died after being pushed down a subway track by a homeless man with a psychiatric disorder as a train pulled into the Times Square station. beating heart of upscale Manhattan.
See also on The HuffPost: Man in Wheelchair Narrowly Saved from NYC Subway Tracks
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