February 26, 2007
GET 'EM A SUITE
The New York Sun looks today at the costs and benefits of a program designed to escort homeless people from the subway system and into shelters or rehab centers. The primary problem with the program is that homeless people do not want to go to shelters where rules are restrictive and safety is questional. In addition, it is not illegal to be homeless and subway workers and cops tend not to care whether homeless people spend their nights riding the train or hanging out in a station. The end result is that the MTA is spending an average of $2,000 for each homeless person they escort to a shelter. Bear in mind, that is not the cost of the shelter and services received once there. The $2,000 is simply the cost of escorting a homeless person from Point A to Point B.
The MTA this year renewed its $1.5 million contract with the Bowery Residents' Committee, a nonprofit social service provider, to fund the program for outreach workers to visit subway stations and try to convince homeless people to accept escorts to city-run shelters or detox centers.
But station agents, vagrants, and straphangers interviewed over the past three weeks at stops popular among the homeless said they knew little or nothing about the program, and had rarely or never observed these outreach workers in action. Even after almost 20 years in existence, the MTA-funded outreach program is little known.
The outreach program carried out 875 escorts last year, according to statistics provided by the MTA. Outreach workers estimated that they were re-escorting the same homeless people back to the shelters from subway stations about 25% of the time. "It's a tough sell," the program director, Robert Rumore, said. "The largest portion of people we escort is back out again."
While the outreach program director for the Bowery Residents Committee says that the majority of its efforts are concentrated on a small number of stations favored by the homeless. When The Sun questioned station agents at these stations, few had ever even heard of the program. This seems to be one of those intractable problems. The MTA is certainly doing everyone a service with the program. There is a humanitarian component that identifies the necessity of getting homeless people shelter. Removing these people from the subway also serves to improve the mass transit experience for all other customers. The weak link seems to be the non-compulsory nature of the outreach. Some people prefer to be homeless than in the shelter system. Perhaps some thought should be given to improving or compromising the shelters. If one's immediate interest is in protecting the physical well-being of homeless people, maybe they should allow drinking in shelters when it is bitterly cold. Are we trying to save homeless people from the elements or from themselves? Both would be nice, but the MTA does not have limitless funds.
One of the most interesting things in the story involves strategies for getting in out of the cold. Many homeless people just flag down a cop or call 911, claiming illness. They then get an ambulance ride to an ER, where they spend the night. The accumulated costs of a single one of these incidents must surely even outstrip the $2,000 the MTA spends on each escort. The cops would be better off dropping the homeless person off at the nearest Manhattan hotel for $300 a night.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at February 26, 2007 10:08 AM
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