Mayor Eric Adams and other city officials announced a new public safety and social services outreach initiative pairing NYPD officers, transit workers, support workers, and clinicians together on New York City subways as a means of assisting the homeless population.
The program, known as Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness (PATH), was first launched in August and is designed to be a “major advancement of the city’s embrace of ‘co-response,” a crisis response model in which law enforcement is teamed up with clinical professionals in order to engage with people in need of medical care or social services, and reportedly offer shelter as well. It includes members the NYPD Transit Bureau, New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS), and NYC Health + Hospitals.
During a press conference at the Times Square subway station on Thursday evening, Adams said the initiative is designed to ensure rider safety and support.
“It’s imperative that New York City remains not only the safest big city in America, but the safest city in America and our subway system must lead the way,” Adams said.
The mayor’s announcement comes after an MTA worker was critically injured after a stabbing incident on Tuesday.
According to Brian Stettin, Adams’ senior advisor on severe mental illness, the administration is seeking to expand the “co-response” model.
Stettin acknowledged that PATH is similar to another co-response program for NYC subways known as SCOUT, which Gov. Kathy Hochul launched in March. However, PATH runs overnight, whereas SCOUT teams go out in the daytime. Stettin also said that PATH is focused on providing a broader range of services, while SCOUT focuses on identifying people in the midst of mental health crises who might need to be taken to the hospital. He added that when necessary, PATH teams can take people to the hospital as well, with their consent or not.
Since its launch, members of the co-response PATH team have engaged with over 1,550 unhoused New Yorkers, and over 500 New Yorkers directly connected to services, ranging from shelter, meals, and medical help, according to the mayor’s office. Each team consists of four police officers, a nurse and two Department of Homeless Services service coordinators.
Additionally, members of the NYPD have reportedly issued 18 summonses and removed 190 people from the transit system for various violations of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s (MTA) rules of conduct or state law since the launch of the initiative.
According to city data, transit crime has dropped 5.1% this year to date. While PATH teams are currently only operating in Manhattan, Adams said the goal is to expand them to other parts of the city. However, Thursday’s press conference was met with some backlash, Gothamist reported, with one subway rider shouting at the mayor, “Fund health care, not police.”
Shawn Tish, an outreach worker with one of the PATH teams, said the presence of police sometimes makes people hesitant to engage with him, but they are mainly there for protection if someone tries to incite violence. “But we assure them that the police aren’t there for them,” Tish, who is formerly homeless, told Gothamist. “They’re there for us, for our protection.”
