Rise of Homeless in Subways Poses Increasing Problem for Transit Staff

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Rise of Homeless in Subways Poses Increasing Problem for Transit Staff

By BOB HENNELLY Oct 27, 2017 Updated Oct 30, 2017

WHOSE JOB IS THIS?: In the morning rush hour on the No. 2 and No. 3 line platform at Penn Station, an unidentified intoxicated woman lies undisturbed. Subway workers say trying to get intoxicated or sleeping homeless people to move so they can clean puts them at risk of being spat upon or assaulted.

The Chief-Leader/Bob Hennelly

While the debate over what to do about the city’s growing homeless problem continues, transit workers, particularly those in the subways, find themselves on the front lines of the crisis, their union leaders say.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 officials say they worry for their rank and file as they engage a population with serious health issues that everyday New Yorkers prefer to ignore.

7,000 More Than in 2014

At last count, the city’s homeless population exceeded 60,000. In 2014, at the start of Mayor de Blasio’s tenure, that number was 53,615. In 1990, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, there were slightly more than 20,000. Back then, the number of homeless children was 7,000. Today it is 24,000. There are also thousands of individuals who are reluctant to stay in the shelters and find sanctuary on the street or in the subway.

“It is just out of control,” said a veteran Station Agent with 27 years on the job who was not cleared to speak with the media. “I recently found a female in her 50s, entirely naked, except for a towel, talking for 15 minutes on what turned out to be a broken cell phone. I called for EMS assistance and she was taken to Beth Israel around 5:30 pm. This woman was back in exactly the same place by 9 p.m., but this time with a pair of sweatpants and a shirt on. But it was clear there was something seriously wrong with her leg. It smelled like rotting flesh. I just don’t understand how she ended up being released like that.”

She continued, “The rules are they can’t occupy more than one seat, but I don’t see the cops enforcing that—I don’t think they can.” “BRC Homeless teams come out and offer them shelter and they turn them down. It’s not a crime to be homeless, but there is not a day when I am not dealing with this.”

Disincentive to Report

“A lot of the time the really difficult situation is when you come to the end of the line and as a conductor it’s your job to get them off the train and you can’t wake them, and if you do, they might spit at you or assault you,” said Crystal Young, TWU Local 100 Chair of the Conductor & Tower Division. She said members are in a Catch-22 situation regarding reporting these incidents. “We had a conductor report someone spits in his face and management sent him down for drug testing, so it just makes you less inclined to report anything.”

Ms. Young said there needs to be a greater police presence throughout the subways system. “Sometimes if you have a fight on the train you signal for them and they don’t show up. Some stations don’t have cops, and other times you’ll see a whole bunch of them in one place,” she said. “I have compassion for the homeless, but there has to be a safer place for them to be other than riding around on a train all the time.”

She added the homeless are not the only existing condition that has a negative impact on both the rider and transit-worker experience. “We have people totally drunk doing stuff they would­n’t think of trying on the Long Island Rail Road. Why do we let public behavior slide in the subway but not in other places? Are we substandard, lower-class?”

Harder to Clean System

“The homeless really impact our ability to clean the system,” said Derrick Eche­varia, TWU Local 100 Vice President of Stations, in a phone interview. “We have an outbreak of bedbugs and really have no policy for getting rid of them. The homeless have to have someplace to sleep and we have to clean those places.”

And as a consequence, Mr. Echevaria said increasingly his members are themselves getting bedbugs while trying to maintain the areas where the homeless have taken over.

“The best we can do is to make sure our members that have to deal with this are put out as paid sick time,” he said. “But they have to come back with a receipt to show their house has been fumigated.”

Confrontation Risks

Last April an effort by Amtrak police to subdue an emotionally-disturbed person with a Taser set off a public panic that produced a stampede out of Penn Station that left 16 people injured. At the time a former high-ranking officer with the NYPD said in an interview he thought there was an under-appreciation by the de Blasio administration of the security and public-safety risks it was running by letting street homelessness continue to grow.

“If the general public doesn’t see real engagement with those kinds of situations it undermines their confidence in public order in general,” he said. “Yet none of the police agencies want to deal with the homeless. Nobody wants to put one of them in their patrol car.”

Source: http://thechiefleader.com/rise-of-homeless-in-subways-poses-increasing-problem-for-transit/article_80aa1336-aebc-11e7-a1e5-f77fee90cd08.html

[LGA Link N Train]

Well something needs to be done AND FAST. The homelessness issue needs to (I mean) SHOULD'VE BEEN ADRESSED LONG AGO. If the MTA needs to ban homelessness in its trains and buses, then gladly do so (I bet we all need that) Police presence enforcement should've been in effect long ago. Hopefully some day, a politician will step up to the plate and fix these issues before the become worse.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

If TWU100 feels so strongly about their workers being assaulted or spat on by the homeless, my question is what are they doing about it? It's de Blasio that is responsible for this, so that means they must be throwing their support behind some other candidate come election time.

This is yet another article on this situation.  I mean can you imagine having to clean this crap up.  Incredible.  What really got me was the whole bed bug mess.  So you're trying to clean up, and now you have to deal with taking bed bugs home with you. 

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Commuters are fed up with homeless man’s stinky trash

By Danielle Furfaro and Elizabeth Rosner

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October 30, 2017 | 6:11pm | Updated

A homeless man has been camped out at an entrance to the Jay Street/MetroTech station for about a month, hoarding a stinking pile of trash that the MTA and building owner NYU have ignored, straphangers say.

The makeshift home — which on Monday afternoon included rotting food, clothing and a Shake Shack cup containing a liquid that looks like urine — is right up against the station entrance at the corner of Jay and Willoughby streets. It smelled overwhelmingly of sewage and urine, and pigeons kept picking at the scraps.

“It is very hazardous to people’s health, and it’s been like this for a month,” griped rider Burnell Harrison, 47, of Ocean Hill. “I saw the homeless man yesterday sleeping next to the junk.”

Straphanger Ori Livneh said he first noticed the mess in early October and started documenting in on the 16th. He said he has placed numerous calls to 311, but no one has ever dealt with the disgusting mess.

“I changed the station entrance I use because of this,” said Livneh, 34, of Brooklyn Heights. “It’s particularly bad because you come up the escalator facing the other way, and you’re hit with this nauseating smell when you come up.”

MTA officials said NYU is responsible for cleaning up the area around that station entrance, since the university technically owns the property.

“While this trash has accumulated on privately owned property, the MTA is demanding the area be cleaned for the comfort and safety of our riders,” said agency spokesman Shams Tarek. “ If any homeless individuals are using this area, we hope City Hall will act to get them the help and shelter they need.”

NYU officials, who own the property, claim they cleaned up the mess before, but the homeless man set up camp again.

Source: http://nypost.com/2017/10/30/commuters-are-fed-up-with-homeless-mans-stinky-trash/

[Deucey]

Obviously it's not a high priority for NYPD, so since it's technically a state agency, make  police do more than look at toll plaza and STS with State Troopers and Natty Guardsmen/women at Penn and GCT.

Or, recreate NYCTA police, since the city still has separate police agencies for different departments (NYCHA police, Sanitation police et al)

[Via Garibaldi 8]

7 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Obviously it's not a high priority for NYPD, so since it's technically a state agency, make  police do more than look at toll plaza and STS with State Troopers and Natty Guardsmen/women at Penn and GCT.

Or, recreate NYCTA police, since the city still has separate police agencies for different departments (NYCHA police, Sanitation police et al)

It's not a high priority for the NYPD only because de Blasio hasn't made it one.  Pat Lynch, who is the president of the New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has been quite clear that he feels that de Blasio's policies are hindering the NYPD from taking a touch stance on issues like homelessness in the subway system:

Quote

Meanwhile, Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch joined the fray, saying the mayor created a climate that police have to clean up.

Source: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/10/24/de-blasio-homelessness-mistakes/

Quote

Meanwhile, Patrick J. Lynch, the president of New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said on Tuesday that he supported the governor’s statement that “nobody should be sleeping on the subway and New York City police officers play a role in preventing that from happening.” Mr. Lynch — whose organization has feted the governor and clashed with the mayor — added: “We wish the rest of our elected leaders would support us in that effort.”

  Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/nyregion/cuomo-de-blasio-nypd-subway-homeless.html

 

[Deucey]

@Via Garibaldi 8, cops always say they're being prevented from doing stuff - whether it's the pols or the courts. To me, it's lazy bureaucratese - people who really want something find a way to do it within the law or in the gray area between legal and illegal.

There's 45k blue bloods in the city on active and reserve status, so the manpower is there. It's the desire that isn't.

If they didn't have funding, the PBA should be lobbying, the Commish should be lobbying and both should be thinking about how to partner with other agencies to do that - Housing and Homeless PD, Sheriff's office, NYSP - partnerships don't need Billy to sign off to happen.

But the will has to be there, and it isn't. That's the problem.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 minute ago, Deucey said:

@Via Garibaldi 8, cops always say they're being prevented from doing stuff - whether it's the pols or the courts. To me, it's lazy bureaucratese - people who really want something find a way to do it within the law or in the gray area between legal and illegal.

There's 45k blue bloods in the city on active and reserve status, so the manpower is there. It's the desire that isn't.

If they didn't have funding, the PBA should be lobbying, the Commish should be lobbying and both should be thinking about how to partner with other agencies to do that - Housing and Homeless PD, Sheriff's office, NYSP - partnerships don't need Billy to sign off to happen.

But the will has to be there, and it isn't. That's the problem.

It has nothing to do with funding. I have several friends who are NYPD cops. They don't feel that this mayor has their back. That's what this is about.  De Blasio has been very critical of the NYPD, moreso than previous mayors, and it has led to tense relations.  Least we forget when he showed up to one of the funerals, almost all of the NYPD officers that were there refused to acknowledge him and literally turned their backs on him. I can't recall EVER seeing that sort of friction between a NYC mayor and the police force.  The morale of officers is really down as well.  They really do give a damn, but at the same time, they are not jeopardizing their careers and their families to go out and solve issues if the mayor is going to bad mouth them in the media and I understand where they're coming from.  I think in the past I didn't really think about what they go through, but having several friends that are cops has put things into perspective.  

[N6 Limited]

They can't get money out of homeless people so they focus on traffic tickets and petty offenses. 

[Wallyhorse]

The only way this will change is if companies based in New York start moving their headquarters elsewhere just to get away from the subways. 

[CenSin]

When faced with two difficult situations, there will eventually be a moment when a choice is made. I would not mind if cops looked the other way while someone else takes care of the homeless problem…

[Deucey]

21 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

It has nothing to do with funding. I have several friends who are NYPD cops. They don't feel that this mayor has their back. That's what this is about.  De Blasio has been very critical of the NYPD, moreso than previous mayors, and it has led to tense relations.  Least we forget when he showed up to one of the funerals, almost all of the NYPD officers that were there refused to acknowledge him and literally turned their backs on him. I can't recall EVER seeing that sort of friction between a NYC mayor and the police force.  The morale of officers is really down as well.  They really do give a damn, but at the same time, they are not jeopardizing their careers and their families to go out and solve issues if the mayor is going to bad mouth them in the media and I understand where they're coming from.  I think in the past I didn't really think about what they go through, but having several friends that are cops has put things into perspective.  

It’s prioritization- transit isn’t as important to NYPD as life above ground.

Thats not a swipe. Stopping harassers, shoplifters and conflagrations amongst crowds is more important than fare evasion, and those situations are more easily dealt with and “safer” than handling a mentally disturbed homeless individual in a confined space. And while cops are (supposedly) trained on the latter - and I say supposedly because a lot of these trainings across police forces across the US is essentially a memo and PowerPoint - few ever actually specialize on it.

Because it’s not a priority. And it’s a revolving door - hobos are arrested, released and back at it.

But if it was a priority, there’d be a unit and specialists for it in the NYPD. But the city has that already - Homeless Police; housing police, etc. They specialize in dealing with this population, so recreating NYCTA Police and merging it with Homeless police makes a more effective agency to combat that problem since NYPD can’t or won’t.

Or make MTA PD patrol the subway and specialize in this area, since the system is state-run.

But morale? I get it - I’ve worked for plenty of shitty bosses and just did my job. Maybe not as well as I would’ve under a better boss, but I still got what I needed to done and done well. That’s my ethic.

But having been in enough jobs where “everything” is a priority, if everything actually is, then nothing is. So you focus on fewer things. That’s the problem; the question is how to fix it.

I don’t fault NYPD - it can’t do everything even with 45k in uniform.

[RailRunRob]

20 hours ago, Wallyhorse said:

The only way this will change is if companies based in New York start moving their headquarters elsewhere just to get away from the subways. 

Bingo!!

[NY1635]

20 hours ago, Wallyhorse said:

The only way this will change is if companies based in New York start moving their headquarters elsewhere just to get away from the subways. 

Where would companies based in New York move their headquarters? NYC is the only part of the state with good access to mass transit, companies moving east word to LI or up north towards Yonkers would require buildings to be built around major commuter rail hubs and ignore the cries of NIMBYs.

[Deucey]

2 hours ago, NY1635 said:

Where would companies based in New York move their headquarters? NYC is the only part of the state with good access to mass transit, companies moving east word to LI or up north towards Yonkers would require buildings to be built around major commuter rail hubs and ignore the cries of NIMBYs.

LA, SF, DAL, HOU, ATL, CHI, TOR, MIA, BOS, DC, CLT, SEA, PHX.

[RailRunRob]

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

LA, SF, DAL, HOU, ATL, CHI, TOR, MIA, BOS, DC, CLT, SEA, PHX.

Pretty much...  Especially the Cities with great talent pools linked to great Colleges/ Universities.. Caltech,MIT ect... Look at what the City is trying to do on Roosevelt Island with Cornell trying to attract more talent!! (It's amazing campus BTW definitely check it out )  ld add Denver, Austin, and Portland, OR to that list.. NYC is becoming more and more the land of the just the financial Bro's were already starting to lose some companies or downsizing at least.  

[Via Garibaldi 8]

6 hours ago, Deucey said:

It’s prioritization- transit isn’t as important to NYPD as life above ground.

Thats not a swipe. Stopping harassers, shoplifters and conflagrations amongst crowds is more important than fare evasion, and those situations are more easily dealt with and “safer” than handling a mentally disturbed homeless individual in a confined space. And while cops are (supposedly) trained on the latter - and I say supposedly because a lot of these trainings across police forces across the US is essentially a memo and PowerPoint - few ever actually specialize on it.

Because it’s not a priority. And it’s a revolving door - hobos are arrested, released and back at it.

But if it was a priority, there’d be a unit and specialists for it in the NYPD. But the city has that already - Homeless Police; housing police, etc. They specialize in dealing with this population, so recreating NYCTA Police and merging it with Homeless police makes a more effective agency to combat that problem since NYPD can’t or won’t.

Or make MTA PD patrol the subway and specialize in this area, since the system is state-run.

But morale? I get it - I’ve worked for plenty of shitty bosses and just did my job. Maybe not as well as I would’ve under a better boss, but I still got what I needed to done and done well. That’s my ethic.

But having been in enough jobs where “everything” is a priority, if everything actually is, then nothing is. So you focus on fewer things. That’s the problem; the question is how to fix it.

I don’t fault NYPD - it can’t do everything even with 45k in uniform.

This again goes back to de Blasio because he got the NYPD away from the "broken windows" policy. Let's not forget his stance on things like public urination. He's allowed things like that to fester and worsen the quality of life overall, which is another reason the city is dirtier than ever no matter how rich the neighborhood. My neighborhood has become filthy since he took office and I've been raising hell for more pick-ups and demanding that the local businesses do more to keep their sidewalks cleaner, but when you stop cracking down on the small things that's how the big things become a problem and get out of control. We have a mayor whose policies say hey "I'm soft on crime" and believe you me, this does have an impact on things like moving the homeless out. As you said, everything becomes a priority and then nothing does.

[Deucey]

1 hour ago, RailRunRob said:

Pretty much...  Especially the Cities with great talent pools linked to great Colleges/ Universities.. Caltech,MIT ect... Look at what the City is trying to do on Roosevelt Island with Cornell trying to attract more talent!! (It's amazing campus BTW definitely check it out )  ld add Denver, Austin, and Portland, OR to that list.. NYC is becoming more and more the land of the just the financial Bro's were already starting to lose some companies or downsizing at least.  

I was focusing on places with above basic transit and airport hubs, and forgot about DEN and VAN, although the latter could twin with SEA (I really need to go out there and ride SkyTrain).

[Porter]

My hometown of San Francisco is supposedly the capital of homelessness in this country, and yet, our subway system seldom tolerates these problems like NYC does.

[Deucey]

2 hours ago, Skipper said:

My hometown of San Francisco is supposedly the capital of homelessness in this country, and yet, our subway system seldom tolerates these problems like NYC does.

Not in the muni stations, but I’ve been on the owl buses, with homeless sleeping on them, leaving clubs in the Marina district.

SF’s the only thing I miss about NorCal.

[RailRunRob]

15 hours ago, Deucey said:

I was focusing on places with above basic transit and airport hubs, and forgot about DEN and VAN, although the latter could twin with SEA (I really need to go out there and ride SkyTrain).

 Gotcha.. I went to an event at UColorado Denver back in May I got a chance to ride there new RTD line pretty smooth man gotta say.. Havnt done Vancouver yet I have to get out there.

11 hours ago, Deucey said:

Not in the muni stations, but I’ve been on the owl buses, with homeless sleeping on them, leaving clubs in the Marina district.

SF’s the only thing I miss about NorCal.

Oh man, that 14-night owl I have stories man!! I lived in the Eastbay for 5 years. Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland late-night's Friday or Saturday id just stay with a friend in Glen Park I'd get that Mission late night 14 bus I've seen it 1st hand and the homeless out that way are a bit more aggressive. 

[Porter]

The owls, sure, but the police look the other way with those. The Muni stations themselves are fairly strict with one glaring exception: the giant homeless encampment at the Powell Street station near the old Apple Store exit, which has temporarily closed for the construction of a connection with the new Union Square station of the Central Subway. Once that massive connection opens, I expect that they'll all be swept up by the city.

[bobtehpanda]

On 11/2/2017 at 8:59 PM, Deucey said:

I was focusing on places with above basic transit and airport hubs, and forgot about DEN and VAN, although the latter could twin with SEA (I really need to go out there and ride SkyTrain).

Confusingly enough, Vancouver is not VAN, but YVR. VAN is the code for the city of Van in Turkey.

[CenSin]

6 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Confusingly enough, Vancouver is not VAN, but YVR. VAN is the code for the city of Van in Turkey.

Because the major destinations can’t have all of the good codes.

[B35 via Church]

7 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Confusingly enough, Vancouver is not VAN, but YVR. VAN is the code for the city of Van in Turkey.

16 minutes ago, CenSin said:

Because the major destinations can’t have all of the good codes.

All Canadian airport codes start with 'Y'... Never understood the rationale behind it...

[Deucey]

1 hour ago, B35 via Church said:

All Canadian airport codes start with 'Y'... Never understood the rationale behind it...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IATA_airport_code