NYC NOW - Midday News: Work Requirements Return for Public Assistance, Local Leaders Protest Budget Cuts, and a Look at NYPD Data on Homeless Encampment

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Starting Monday, New Yorkers receiving cash assistance must once again meet work requirements or risk losing benefits. Meanwhile, Senator Cory Booker and Representative Hakeem Jeffries held an hours-long sit-in on the Capitol steps to protest looming cuts to social services. Plus, NYPD data show thousands of homeless encampment sweeps last year, but only about a hundred people wound up in shelter. WNYC’s Karen Yi has more.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, April 28th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Starting today, New Yorkers who get cash assistance must meet work requirements again or risk losing their benefits. WMIC's Tiffany Hansen explains what that means. Nearly 600,000 low-income residents in the city depend on cash benefits, which were exempt from work rules during the pandemic.

Now, recipients either have to submit proof they're working, enroll in a city-funded job program, or show they're medically exempt. City officials say the rollout will be gradual and no one will immediately lose benefits, but advocates say the rules could put new pressure on families already struggling to navigate the city's overburdened social services system. Senator Cory Booker and Congress member Hakeem Jeffries are continuing their protests against Republican leadership, this time with an hours-long sit-in

on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Booker of New Jersey and Jeffries of Brooklyn sat on the Capitol steps for more than eight hours yesterday. Members of the public trakeled in to share how they say looming cuts to social services will negatively affect them. Booker spoke on the Capitol's steps, pounding his fist to emphasize what he calls a moment of moral urgency. You hit rock bottom, but that's where in the church at that rock bottom, bottom that the solid ground becomes a faith, that that's the solid ground to start building people back up again. Booker says Republican leaders plan to advance a budget bill in the coming weeks that seeks to cut funding for Medicaid and other safety net programs. The administration

says the goal is to root out ways to Medicaid fraud. 69 and sunny right now, sunny and 75 for high today, 81 tomorrow under mostly sunny skies. Stay close. There's more after the break. NYC. NYPD numbers show police cleared homeless people from public spaces thousands of times last year, with 100 ending up in a shelter. WNYC's Karen Ye look through the data and joins us now. Karen, let's start by defining our terms. What types of police actions are we talking about here?

Right. When we're talking about the removal of a homeless person from a public space, we're really talking about two general types of interactions. So one is what's commonly known as an encampment, where a bunch of different agencies that includes parks and sanitation, homeless services, and NYPD are responding to some sort of encampment where several homeless people are gathered. That can be tents, cardboard boxes, sometimes a cluster of street bending. And during this interagency initiative, which the city calls a cleanup, city workers clear away any physical structures, sometimes bringing

garbage trucks, and they offer services to homeless individuals. The other removal we're talking about is really just one NYPD officer responding to one homeless person and asking them to move along or taking them to a shelter or a hospital if they need treatment. Noam Cohen shared at a rally last week how he's experienced this when he lived on the street. It was always on freezing cold nights when the NYPD would kick us off the trains. When I used to sleep on the trains, I didn't do so because I wanted to. I did so because I sincerely felt like there were really just no other options. Cohen is in shelter now, but he says he was terrified of living in shelters before, which is why he was living on the streets.

And Karen, what do the city's data show about how often people are being forced to move off the streets? The data that we were able to see is now required under city council legislation, and that law says that the city has to tell the public every quarter, every time a homeless person is removed from a public space, whether it's part of these encampment sweeps who talked about or an officer telling them to leave. And it shows us that between January and September last year, police helped move for more than 27,000 homeless New Yorkers from public spaces and city workers cleared 3,500 people from encampments. What we don't know is how many of these 27,000 people asked to move by police

actually ended up in a shelter. Adolfo Obrayu is an organizer with the Homeless Advocacy Group vocal New York. On this block right now, you can get removed and you can just come back within the next half hour or an hour and set up shop again. Right? So like what they're doing is just repeating cycles that are really not connecting to people. But I think the name of the game that they want is out of sight, out of mind. What we do know is that out of the 3,500 people cleared from their encampments, just over 100 took temporary shelter and none received permanent housing.

What does the Adams administration say about whether this approach is, whether it's working? Well, Adams doesn't seem to be deterred. using this as a strategy to combat street truth homelessness, as have other mayors before him to be clear. He has said before that he doesn't think there's any dignity in living on the street and that it can take several times to convince

someone who's living on the street to accept shelter. So that data isn't always clear about what happens because somebody maybe takes a shelter, not the day of the encampment sweep, but maybe a few days later, right? And earlier this month, he announced a new NYPD unit that will focus on low-level offenses to help New Yorkers feel safe

and that will include things like aggressive panhandling and encampments. But I've spoken to business owners in the past where their streets have been the target of up to 200 sweeps in a period and some express support for them because they say it can be bad for their business, if there's an encampment right outside their store, or if someone's panhandling right outside. What did the data tell you about where these removals are taking place? Well, they're overwhelmingly and mostly happening in Manhattan, especially police removals of homeless people. Of the 27,000 we talked about, 11,000 happened in just one city council district.

That's a stretch between the West Village and Soho, up to Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, and Times Square. Maria Wallace is a member of the safety and activists, a group of New Yorkers who have experienced poverty and homelessness. She says she's not surprised this is concentrated in that area in Manhattan. It's a commercial district where businesses are opening up 9 o'clock, 8, 9 o'clock in the morning, and they see a homeless brother or, you know, a homeless person in the streets. We don't want you here. Gotta go. Council members, Sandy Nurse, she's the one who sponsored legislation to get the city to disclose how often they were doing this.

She says that the numbers show that this strategy is really an aesthetic one and not one that's actually helping house people. Sweeps is sweeping it under the rug. That's why they call it sweeps. They don't work. What I'll also mention is that 70% of the homeless in camp and cleanups are happening at repeat locations. Karen, as you explain all this, I'm wondering how much is this? costing taxpayers? In the nine-month period we're looking at, the city spent $3.5 million, and it involved about 10,000 city workers. WNIC's Karen, Karen, thank you for this.

Thanks, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.