NYC NOW - November 7, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Several subway and bus lines are disrupted as police say a suspect in an Upper West Side shooting fled into a subway station. Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul is running out of time to launch congestion pricing in New York City before President-Elect Donald Trump, who previously vowed to cancel the program, takes office. Plus, former Marine Daniel Penny is back in court as his trial in the killing of Jordan Neely continues. Finally, Mayor Eric Adams is deploying new outreach teams to support homeless New Yorkers in the subway, aiming to improve transit safety. WNYC’s health reporter Caroline Lewis discusses the impact of these initiatives.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, November 7th. Here's the midday news from Tiffany Hanson. Several subway and bus lines are facing disruptions today as police say the suspect in a shooting on the Upper West Side fled into the transit system. NYPD officials say a 47-year-old man was shot in the shoulder and the leg this morning. That happened near West 68th Street and Columbia. Avenue. According to police, the victim is in stable condition at Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital. The alleged shooter ran into the subway at 72nd Street and Central Park West. Service is delayed or rerouted on the A, B, C, and D-Line trains. Governor Kathy Hokel is running out of time to launch congestion pricing tolls in New York City with President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House on the horizon. Hokel put the program on an indefinite pause in June, and Trump has vowed to cancel the plan in the past. If congestion pricing were to launch before Trump takes office, advocates say he would have a hard time nixing the tolls, but Hogle won't say if she'll expedite

the program's launch. This is a scenario that we planned for starting last summer, and before the end of the year, in a timely enough frame, we will have our announcements and a plan and a funding plan. The money for the program, or from the program, rather, is supposed to pay for $15 billion. dollars worth of repairs to the city's transit system. If the MTA were to reduce the price of the tolls initially slated to charge $15 to most drivers, they would have to hold a 60-day public review before launching that program. Weatherwise, headed up to 76 today with sunshine clear tonight and a low of 49 degrees. We're at 71 now in the city.

Stay close. There's more after the break. Mayor Eric Adams is sending out a new set of teams to offer services to homeless New Yorkers in the subway, adding to a constellation of outreach efforts. It's the latest in a string of subway initiatives that Adams and Governor Hokel have launched in recent years, targeting people who are homeless or appear to have mental health issues. They say the ultimate goal is to make the transit system safer. WNYC's health care reporter, Caroline Lewis, is here to talk about their approach and what kinds of results we're seeing so far, Hi, Caroline. Hi. All right. Let's start with these new outreach teams I mentioned. What do they look like?

So the outreach program that was recently announced, known as Path, sends out teams that each include a nurse to service coordinators who can help people get connected to a shelter or food or medical care and for police officers. And these teams started going out in August and they've connected about 500 people to some kind of service so far. And the city says the police officers are really just there to provide protection to the other members of the team. But they're also issuing summonses and they've directed about 200 people to leave the subway for various reasons. And this combination of policing and outreach I think is a really prime example of how the city and state have approached homelessness and people with mental health issues in the subway in general over the past few years. And I think there could be more scrutiny around these types of policies in the coming weeks as Daniel Penny stands trial for killing Jordan Neely on the train last year. You know, as I'm sure people recall, Penny is the former Marine who used a fatal chokehold on Neely, a man who was homeless and had a history of mental health issues. That incident happened last year, but let's go back even a few more years, if we can, Caroline, when did Mayor Adams and Governor Hokel, for that matter?

lay out their vision for addressing homelessness in the subway system? So this is really one of the first priorities Mayor Adams laid out for his administration after he took office in 2022. And he's had Hockel by his side from the beginning. You know, so in February of that year, the two announced their subway safety plan. And it became clear early on that they were really very closely linking the presence of people who are homeless and appear to have a mental health issue in the subway with rider safety. And at that time, Adams announced there would be more outreach workers in the subway to offer people services.

But he also said, quote, end of the line teams would be telling people to leave the trains at the last stop, whether they like it or not. And both Adams and Hockel have really just flooded the subway with police since then. And part of their role continues to be to tell people who are homeless to go above ground. And in late 2022, Adams and Hockel announced, you know, what was a really controversial. controversial policy, making it easier for police or clinicians to take someone to the hospital against their will for a psychiatric evaluation. Well, do we have any idea how effective these efforts are at addressing homelessness in the subway system? I would say when it comes to involuntary hospital transports, we really don't have a lot of information. We know that about 130 people

are being taken to the hospital against their will each week, but we don't know if they're being admitted or connected to services afterward. But I do think one of the most important metrics of how all this is working is how many people have been connected to permanent housing. And the city and state say they are making some progress in this area. Adams has doubled the number of city-funded homeless outreach workers on the street and in the subway during his time in office. And they've connected more than 2,000 unsheltered people to permanent housing so far. Hockel, meanwhile, has also launched her own teams that primarily operate in the subways known as SOS, which have connected nearly 600 people to their own apartments. But service providers say this can be a slow process.

You know, it takes time to really build up a rapport with people and earn their trust. And there's also just a really limited housing supply. Well, you mentioned these teams have a combination of both outreach workers and police. Do we have any sense of how the working relationship is between those? two groups? Yeah. So some teams have a combination of police and outreach workers. Some have just outreach workers, but there is just this vast presence of police in the subway. And outreach workers say that, you know, police officers can sometimes be helpful or collaborative, but they can also make things more tense with potential clients. This is Tracy Wilson who helps run SOS. It can be

a little tricky when individuals are constantly being asked to leave every, hour or told to move on. And it's just tricky in trying to find people if they're being told that they need to be off the premises. I also spoke with Sean Tish, an outreach worker on one of the new path teams. And he said he actually feels safer working with police. Sometimes people try to attack us for whatever reason. Sometimes it's not even an undomiciled individual. It's just a community member that we ask if they're homeless and they want to jump in our face, right? Mayor Adams has generally been dismissive of any concerns about how policing or asking people to leave the subway could conflict with the goals of helping people. He says the subway is not meant for homeless

people and they need to go. Well, you mentioned some concerns. I'm wondering how New Yorkers have responded to this approach toward homelessness and mental health in the subway. So I think there's really been a deep divide among New Yorkers and how they view, you know, the willingness to include police and involuntary interventions in the city and state's approach. So I think there's really been a deep divide among approach. And there's also been a divide in how people view the rhetoric, just connecting public safety with people who are unhoused or have a mental illness. You know, studies show that people with a severe mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence themselves than they are to commit a violent crime. But there are these high-profile incidents that have made some New Yorkers

more vigilant. Well, what do we know just in terms of hard numbers about the safety in the subway system overall? What are we seeing? Adams has recently been touting figures showing that crime in the subway is down about 5% this year to date. And he says things are moving in the right direction. But Adams and Hockel also talk a lot about perceptions of safety. And in an MTA survey earlier this year, New Yorker said the top issue affecting their satisfaction with the subway was the presence of people who, quote, act erratically. There's a difference, though, between being uncomfortable and being in danger. and it's still unclear how much crime in the subway is actually committed by people who are homeless or have a mental health issue.

Caroline Lewis covers health care for WNYC and Gothamist. You can read her reporting right now at our news site, Gothamist. Caroline, thanks. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep doves. and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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