NYC NOW - How Is New York's Homeless Outreach Program Working in Rural Communities?

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

In counties along New York's Southern Tier, the number of homeless people nearly tripled between 2019 and 2025. But without all the sidewalks, subways, and shelters of a big city, it's more difficult for street outreach workers to find and help homeless people. WNYC's Jimmy Vielkind talks with us about how the state's street outreach program has adapted to rural communities. Photo: Jimmy Vielkind -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Genevier. If we're in a city, there's an actual brick-and-mortar shelter. We don't have a brick-and-mortar shelter out here. We have hotel rooms, and we have little warming stations where people can't even sleep. Most of us have seen what homelessness looks like on New York City streets. But what about areas outside of the five boroughs? On today's episode, we look into S-O-Row.

Safe Options Support. It's a state-backed program for the homeless that's shifting its tactics to help those in need in rural areas across the state. But before we get into that, here's what we're keeping an eye on. At this moment, there aren't many other strategies other than ordering the full cleaning, the drainage, and the disinfecting protocol. New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Alistair Martin says there isn't much more the Health Department can do about the cluster of Legionnaires disease on the Upper Eighty. Eastside. The health department has reported 59 confirmed cases of the disease. City Council Speaker Julie Minnan, who represents the area, says she's concerned the response has been too narrow. It's been very frustrating and my constituents are very frustrated as well and

that is why we are demanding an increase and more proactive, aggressive response on this. Minning called on city health officials to expand efforts to test and disinfect water tanks in the neighborhood. Legionaire's disease is caused to. by bacteria that can grow in water tanks serving buildings around the city. Oh boy, another heat wave is coming this week. Get ready for that. New York City's Department of Emergency Management says a heat advisory will be in effect from noon Tuesday until 9 Thursday night.

That's when temperatures are expected to reach the upper 90s. Emergency management says New Yorkers should avoid strenuous outdoor activities and stay hydrated and also seek a cool place to stay. And I have a couple suggestions for that. Libraries, museums, and water parks can all be great places to stay cool. Parenting is tough to say the least. And I know all the moms and dads listening could certainly use a break. New York City is now offering some parents an evening out.

And you won't even have to call that expensive babysitter. We're giving parents a four-hour block to put their kids somewhere where they know it is safe, trusted, where we have really high-quality trained recreational specialists. That's Trisha Shimamora, Commissioner of New York City Parks Department. She says the department is inviting parents to register for a chance at a few hours of free child care next month at a city-run recreation center, one in each borough. She says workers will feed the kids' dinner and keep them occupied with activities like sports, arts and crafts, and more. And then parents can do the things that they need to do, whether that's grocery shop or,

or get some dinner or just sit uninterrupted for four hours. The Parks Commissioner says the idea came from a personal place. She's the mom of a four and seven-year-old. And I know that every day, every hour during the summertime is really, really valuable. But it's also really hard to find reliable opportunities to engage your kids. Giving parents a break isn't the only goal of the Parents' Night Out program. Tricia says it's also an opportunity to show what the Parks Department has to offer. We're not just babysitting these kids and putting them in front of a TV.

What we're doing is really helping them get a taste of what our recreation centers can actually provide. It's so much, and we get to give 500 kids an opportunity to really get involved with our parks and recreation programs, particularly at our rec centers. Tricia Shimomorra is Commissioner of New York City's Parks Department. you can register for Parents Night Out at NYCGovParks.org. It was a historic weekend for hip-hop heads and JZ fans. The Brooklyn-born artists performed three sold-out shows at Yankee Stadium Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Each night centered on a different era of the hip-hop mogul's career. The third show got a little rowdy, though, before it even began.

Police say thousands of fans were stuck waiting for hours outside Sunday night after a security. breach prompted staff to close all the entrances to the concert. Stadium officials say the lockdown came after people without tickets tried to storm the gates earlier in the night. Jay-Z himself addressed the issue on stage. It was like 10,000 people outside. And we closed all the doors and somebody rush the door and closed the door. You got safety and everybody's safety outside. Some fans say they were so exhausted from the extended weight that they just left.

The concert finally started after midnight and lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Still ahead, when you compare homelessness in New York City to homelessness in smaller rural communities, it looks a lot different. After the break, we look at homeless outreach outside of New York's biggest cities. Stay close. Welcome back. New York City has more people experiencing homelessness than anywhere else in the country. That number grew after the pandemic and an influx of migrants led officials to set up tent shelters for tens of thousands of people. But it's not just a city problem.

In counties along New York's southern tier, that's a rural area along the Pennsylvania border, the number of homeless people nearly tripled between 2019 and 2025. Governor Kathy Hockel launched a street outreach program called SOS in New York City in 2022. That stands for safe option support. The following year, the governor expanded that program statewide with different rules for who qualifies for help. WMYC's Jimmy Vilkine has been reporting on how this program has adapted in rural New York communities where homelessness is harder to see and there are fewer resources to help. Hey, Jimmy, welcome to the show. Hi, Junae. Happy to be here.

This is a really, really important one that you're covering here. Can you first tell me about how SOS operated in New York City when it first launched in the show? 2022. Sure. And the context is coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, homeless shelter and outreach providers were really struggling with their bandwidth, right, in terms of like getting enough people to staff what they needed and coping with high turnover. And so as you mentioned, Governor Hockel launched this program to get the state's Office of Mental Health involved in grounded, had never really tilled before. Because remember, Janae, many people who are on the streets know that there are city-run homeless shelters available, but they don't feel safe there.

They don't want to be in those homeless shelters. So the idea of SOS is to look at these individuals, see what they need, and in many cases, they're able to coax them into more permanent rental housing or even supportive housing units over time. So this model started in New York City, but in 2023, it expanded to the rest of the state. These SOS teams are comprised of licensed clinician, like a social worker, care managers, and peer specialists who have formerly been homeless themselves. They go out and look for people on the streets, in subways, on sidewalks, offering food, water, socks, or hygiene products. And the idea is not to try to coax people into shelter. It's to try to make contact, try to see what an individual actually needs. And then later on,

about a more permanent housing situation. And I guess the program expanded because it was doing so well in New York City? Well, it worked in New York City. And of course, as you said, New York City has the largest number of homeless people in the country. But it's a statewide issue. It's not just a city issue. There are now 11 teams operating in 19 counties outside of the five boroughs. Right.

Tell me about how SOS operates outside of the city. And why do the rules have to be? to be different in the first place? Well, the outreach work is just kind of different, right? We talk about in New York City, you will see people on sidewalks. But in the rest of the state, it's more hidden. I wanted to get a feel for this work. So I drove across the Southern Tier and ended up meeting up with some team members outside

of Corning, which is a city of about 10,000 people just north of the Pennsylvania border. So one of the people I met on the team is Butch Andrei. He's a formerly homeless man. He's one of those peers. This is a lot of my day is driving. It's nice. Yeah. It's also not nice.

He spent more than 20 years without permanent housing, living around the country, hopping trains. He was able to talk about the difference between kind of outreach work there and in these rural areas. Go to New York City. There's people sleeping on the sidewalk everywhere. Not everywhere, but it feels like it. And what I mean by that is like the people walking by,

going to work and getting on the subway and doing all these things are used to seeing people on the sidewalk. It's like they're numb to it, right? He said in many ways it's easier to be homeless on the streets of a big city like New York than it is in rural areas. In these rural areas, he says people are hiding. They're hiding because all these people will call on them. They will tell on them because it bothers them that somebody is homeless in their town.

So it makes my job harder because I have to find these people. And then I have to, like, get them resources which there aren't as many. Where exactly are they hiding, Jimmy? People are hiding in places like overpasses. They're sort of tucked in out-of-the-way corners of public parks. We were driving by some train tracks, and Butch says that in a city like New York, he'd be able to see the people who he needs to help right out in the open.

Here in a city, there's an actual brick-and-mortar shelter. We don't have a brick-and-mortar shelter out here. We have hotel rooms, and we have little warming stations where people can't even sleep. Maybe you could take them to a shelter or just help them get immediate care. So not only is it harder to find people in a place like Corning, there's just less infrastructure for helping them. And you mentioned that when they are out and about, they are hiding in corners of this rural city, but Butch has to actually go out and find these people? SOS also takes referrals, you know, organizations or other entities of parts of government that refer homeless individuals so that they can maybe get linked up and get some care and mentorship by members of the SOS team.

But also, yeah, teams will go out and try to find individuals. The team that I met Wichon goes out about once a month. They walk around the woods, they go to some known spots, and I tagged along with them. What you're looking for, bitch? Any signs of trails going up? And, like, I'm looking for, like, signs of campfires. It's like a sign of, like, it was cold out, too, sometimes. People just light a fire.

There was people staying out under this bridge and out there a little bit longer. And we're just seeing if they've moved on. This is what we go through. They can be here one day, and then the next day they're not. Yeah. They're really good hiding. We saw some tents. We saw litter.

We saw some people moving around. Good morning. They didn't want to necessarily engage. The care manager on the team said that there are agencies, hotels, and other supportive housing units where they can help people who they find. These are places where people can access documents that they need to apply for benefits like social security and Medicaid, fill out applications. for permanent housing, catching up on back rat, really just any of the barriers that people who are unhoused sort of face. Again, the point of SOS is not just to get people into shelters,

but to get them into treatment if they need it, to get them medical care for issues that have perhaps been festering, and then to set them up for success over the long haul. My name is Corin Zodom, and my title is Medical Director for Homelessness and Other Complex Populmonary. here at OMA Central Office. I spoke with Dr. Corinzodam or Dr. Zee. She told me that the SOS teams do what's called

critical time intervention, which can help people who are, say, transitioning from prison back to home. The model consists of helping them with housing, helping them remain in housing, and slowly backing off to ensure that they have the skills they need and the support they need to be able to function independently in housing. Jimmy, I'm interested in knowing how the state is measuring its success with this program.

How does the state actually know if this is working or not? So, Janay, here are some numbers. The State Office of Mental Health says that the program has placed 1,800 people into permanent housing. That's more than 1,000 in New York City and almost 1,800 around the state. But to have that kind of success really takes a lot of time. One of the people I met doing this work was Mike Miller. He's a 49-year-old man who was ingesting to life after prison, and he talked with Julie Overton, one of the SOS team members,

about how they first met. She was a little mean. No, I'm just kidding. No, it actually went. It was actually really nice. So their first encounter was at a soup kitchen shortly after Mike was released from prison. So I was in the home of shelter, and these guys were doing outreach at the soup kitchen.

So I finally asked who they were, and then I got introduced to them, and then got started in the program with them. Julie's helped Mike apply for jobs and find housing, which was really hard with a felony conviction. I think that's the hardest thing is to ask for help because most people are afraid to ask for help, you know, especially the homeless type stuff. because I didn't want to be judged. So now Mike has his own apartment. He's in mental health counseling. And he told me he's starting to talk to another homeless services agency about becoming a peer himself, just like Butch,

so he can help other people in his former situation. I also asked Dr. Zodom about how they measure success. And she told me that they'll continue to look for outcomes just beyond housing. They're looking for health. They're looking for connections. they're looking for people with jobs and people who are just safer than they were on the streets. So for Mike, that's meant an apartment and counseling

and the idea of doing this work for himself. For Julie and Butch and other members of the teams, they know that it's going to be different for everybody and they're just going to keep looking for people to help. That's WNYC's Jimmy Philkind. Thanks a lot, Jimmy. Thanks, Janay. And thank you for listening to NYC now.

I'm Jenae Pierre. I'll be back with you next time.