Consider This from NPR - Jordan Neely's Killing Turns Spotlight On New York's Crisis Of Homelessness

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

On Wednesday, after a week of demonstrations, New York City mayor Eric Adams made some of his most forceful comments about the death of Jordan Neely – a homeless Black man who died on a subway train last week when another passenger - Daniel Penny, who's white - held him in a chokehold. While Mayor Adams said that Neely should not have died, he did not call for Penny to be arrested and charged with Neely's death. On Friday, Daniel Penny was arraigned and criminally charged in a Manhattan courtroom.Jordan Neely's death raises difficult questions – about race, class, justice, and society's responsibility to care for those in need. NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Milton Perez, head of the Homelessness Union of VOCAL-New York, on how New York is succeeding and failing at providing services for people who are living on the streets.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. My fellow New Yorkers, this has been a week of strong emotions in our city. On Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams made some of his most forceful comments so far about the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless Black man who died on a subway train last week when another passenger, Daniel Penny, who's white, held him in a chokehold until Neely died. Mayor Adams' remarks came after a week of demonstrations throughout the city

and throughout the city's subways, which disrupted transportation. Many of these protests were in reaction to a video taken by another subway passenger that showed Penny wrestling Neely to the ground in a scene that was painfully reminiscent of the killing of George Floyd. And in another echo of Floyd's killing, Penny was not immediately arrested or charged. One thing we can say for sure, Jordan Neely did not deserve to die. But what Mayor Eric Adams did not say was that Penny should be charged. In fact, he didn't mention Penny at all, nor any of the circumstances surrounding Jordan Neely's death. Instead, Adams focused on the need to provide care for people who are homeless and struggling with mental illness. We will not walk by those in need, step over those who are suffering, or ignore those calls for help. We will respond with care, compassion, and action. We can and must do everything possible to help and heal our

brothers and sisters in crisis. Through his attorneys, Daniel Penny has said that Neely was behaving in a threatening manner towards him. But those who knew Neely remember him as a kind man. Emma Whitford, a reporter for City Limits Online News, interviewed Shannon Hartman for an article on Neely's death. She described something that I think other folks who knew Jordan during his life have said, which is that sometimes when he had spare money, he would give some to her. And this sense of homeless people looking out for each other. NPR's Brian Mann says Neely was known around the city for his Michael Jackson impersonations. He was a street performer. He dressed like Michael Jackson, you know, moonwalking and dancing in exchange for tips.

Neely also endured tragedy and spent years in New York's precarious shelter system. His mother was murdered by a boyfriend when Jordan Neely was just 14. He then spent time in foster care and as an adult was not able to find stable housing. New York City is in the midst of a homelessness crisis and an influx of migrants from the southern border has only added to an already burdened shelter system. In response, the mayor's office ordered an exception to New York's decades old right to shelter law, which obligates the city to provide a bed to anyone who asks for one. And while the city scrambles to find solutions for people who are in desperate need of housing and human services, Adams must also deal with those who are worried about public safety. Mayor Adams has made this a major issue for his administration, and a lot of New Yorkers clearly

are worried about people on the streets and on subway trains who are experiencing homelessness or mental illness or addiction, despite the fact statistically that New York City is very safe. Consider this. Jordan Neely's death raises a lot of difficult questions about race, class, justice, and society's responsibility to care for those in need. We look at how New York is helping and failing people who are homeless. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com.

T's and C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. Emma Whitford is a senior housing reporter for City Limits. That's an online news site covering New York. And in the weeks since Neely's death, she has talked to homelessness advocates about their frustrations with the city's shelter system. They say the solution is to make it much easier for people who are living on the street to get into some sort of housing, some place they can call their own, with minimal red tape and bureaucracy. Under the current system, typically someone who is currently living on the street would have to go to a larger congregate shelter setting where people have told us they don't

necessarily feel safe. And she says the mayor has sought to address this with what's called low barrier shelter beds. They're often known as safe havens or stabilization centers. Those are intended to be more appealing to street homeless folks because you don't necessarily have a curfew. You might have more privacy. It's on a smaller scale. But some of the challenges there are the mayor in his attempts to roll these out has sometimes encountered resistance on the neighborhood level. Whitford says some of that resistance also comes from a system which is already stretched thin and may be facing additional budget cuts. I listened into a hearing this week where the non-profits that contract with the city to administer homeless

services, so this includes the very people who are going to be having that first interaction with an unhoused person, they are staring down 2.5% budget cuts proposed by the mayor. Now, the budget isn't final, but can be very concerning to service providers who say they're already stretched thin, you know, they already have staff who can't earn a living wage and have untenable caseloads. And all this comes on top of the ongoing difficulty of convincing many people living on the streets to enter a system where they may not feel safe or welcome or cared for. Outreach programs targeting those living in the subways and on the streets have provided mixed results. According to data we have as recent as this week, since this effort launched last February, city workers and contracting

nonprofits have recorded more than 300,000 engagements on the subway. That could involve situations where one person is contacted and asked to go to shelter multiple times. But across all those efforts, only 4,600 people have agreed to move into shelter. And then of that 4,600 number, as of this month, only 1,300 people actually remain in those placements, which I think speaks to the challenge of not just getting someone to give shelter a try, but having people feel comfortable and consistent in staying in shelter. And on the other side of this debate is whether New York streets and subways have really become less safe.

Adams has increased the presence of police in the subways, a move that has faced backlash from homelessness advocates. Whitford says context is key to understanding the current climate. Adams came to office as the pandemic was starting to wane in New York. And as a result of the pandemic, a lot of people stopped taking the subway. So I think a lot of the data around safety, arrests, incidents on the subway has to be taken in context of Hugo from having very few people riding the trains to far more. That said, he also came to office at a time where there have been a few very high profile and terrifying incidents. In early January of last year, a woman named Michelle Goh was fatally

pushed onto the tracks by someone who had had mental health challenges. So I think that is definitely something that is in the ether. Now, Milton Perez understands how many New Yorkers perceive homeless individuals. I mean, he's been on the receiving end of it, having been in and out of New York City's shelter system for years. Perez now heads the Homelessness Union of Vocal New York. It's an advocacy group for low-income New Yorkers. And when I spoke with him, I asked how the death of Jordan Neely had personally affected him. What I saw sickened me and it shocked me. You know, I've seen similar situations in the past, but this struck me as a completely, you know, a new thing as far as, you know,

some of the reactions, immediate reactions from the press and some of the people and trolls and people, just the inhumanity. You mean the social media response, the public response, you heard things that were inhumane. Yeah.

Like what? What struck you as inhumane. Yeah. Like what? What struck you as inhumane about how people reacted? Just the, believe me, the victim. Look, to me, this person was strangled to death. And then being held down, not able to fight. Somebody, you're fighting for your life, and then somebody is holding your hand that you can't even fight back or try to get away. And then learning, you know, his family, some of his family history, that his mother died in the same way. And, you know, his family, some of his family history, that his mother died in the same way. And, you know, just you place yourself in a situation and you just imagine as a human

being what he must have been feeling and thinking, you know, that he's being strangled and he can't even fight back is something that shook me up very hard. Yeah. Well, as you've been having conversations with others, others who, like yourself, have experienced or are experiencing homelessness right now, how have they been reacting to what happened to Jordan Neely? People just feel weak. You know, people feel like, you know, there's nothing that they can do. You're blamed for everything, you know, especially the past couple of years.

You know, sometimes you accept it. And a lot of people, you know, go to the outskirts of society, you know, if they just pushed. So you accept the criticism, but a certain time amongst ourselves, you know, OK, whatever criticism you used to, you know, put upon us. We have no choice, but you don't have any power. But when do you look into the systems that we got to deal with on a day-to-day basis, whether it's the shelter system, like the brother Jordan who came out of foster care, how broken that system is,

and people dealing with the carceral system. Me personally and other people that I've spoken to, you just feel weak. And the only comfort that I've had in all this is just seeing the people that, you know, speak on our behalf. If it's all right with you, I would love to ask you more about the time when you were unhoused. Like, how did you think other people in the city perceived you? Did you feel the judgment when people would look at you? Yeah, I did.

I felt invisible. A lot of people feel invisible. You feel out of place. And a lot of shelters are out of the way places in the city, in the outskirts of the city. When I first became involved with Volcom, I would say this is the only business that I know with the customer. It's always wrong. That's how I felt. They are good people, but I would say

overall, reckless and careless. Can I go back to something you were saying earlier that I really want to get deeper into? You were saying how you felt invisible, like sometimes you would stick out. A lot of people who do not experience homelessness, I mean, they talk about, on their part, uneasy feelings, these uneasy interactions with people who are unhoused. Sometimes they say they feel their safety is threatened or their peace of mind is disturbed. And when they encounter people who are experiencing homelessness, they say these encounters are tense or awkward. But New York City, where I've lived for several years, I mean, it's such a dense city. You unavoidably collide with people all the time. Tell me, how do you think people should share the increasingly crowded city space in New York? How should they conduct themselves

with each other? I mean, as a human being, what I've done, you know, is I've given people money, you know, even I may not have to give. I've offered my seat. It's just being a human being. That part also is like sometimes just letting things, you know, be, you know, because you're dealing with people, you know, people talking about mental health, you know, people are going through a hard time. This time that I flipped out and scared people, you know, people talking about mental health, you know, people are going through a hard time. This time that I flipped out and scared people, losing my patience, you know, in anger. So I would treat people like how you would treat anybody that you know, whether it's a family member, an old friend, or an acquaintance. Sometimes you have to let, you know, give people their space. At what point would you intervene though? Right? Because that's the choice that that gentleman, Daniel Penny, encountered.

Intervention is a positive thing. You know, it's like, you know, giving somebody money or giving somebody some food. That's different than, you know, attacking somebody. Being afraid does not give you the excuse to attack somebody. That was Milton Perez. He leads the Homelessness Union of Vocal New York. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.

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