Did MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny surprise anyone by reporting that trying to persuade homeless people to get out of the subway turned out to be a statue of “very expensive” and “minimally effective”?
The agency has budgeted $ 5 million per year for such work, and added $ 2.6 million in overtime over the past year after Governor Andrew Cuomo became ballistic, declaring the homelessness problem underground “terrible” and “worst ever.”
But the law really does not allow MTA to do anything except the more equal, sending 10 police and social workers – who, according to IG notes, lure an average of three homeless people per station per night to the shelter, even dozens. remain on the train and at the station for each who receives service.
The non-profit organization that provides the social worker, the Bowery Residents Committee, has been found to have failed to fulfill its contractual obligations, but that is not the main problem.
After all, the real turnaround only happened after the government used the pandemic as an excuse to shut down the system every night – allowing the police to force the homeless out together with everyone.
That is hard love – at a price that troublesome people who need to travel between 1 am and 5 am, because New York leaders refuse to recognize that homelessness is different, and that it is legal to deny their right to take over public area.
A sane government will fight for the rights of foreigners to use the subway for its intended purpose, and the right of the MTA to exclude those who use it as a shelter.
But when it comes to homelessness, the New York government is completely insane.
