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Daquion Goins makes his living panhandling for money from commuters as they pass him by every day below the streets of New York. Thousands pass him by without noticing; others chip in a buck or two, or hurl an insult over his status.
Goins is among the many homeless individuals residing in a city within a city, its population comprised largely of down-on-their-luck or troubled individuals that society too often ignores, unless something disturbing occurs.
As amNewYork Metro noted in June 2021, after thousands sheltered in place during the deadliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Big Apple’s have-nots claimed the empty subway system for themselves—including those removed from hotel sanctuaries. Nearly two years into the health crisis, a returning society is again coming face-to-face with forgotten people, many of them suffering from addiction or other mental health issues, struggling to live and often ignored by everyone who passes them.
The ramifications of shunning the unhoused and mentally ill into the shadowy bowels of the wider community has had detrimental effects, most notably with the murder of Michelle Alyssa Go, who was shoved into the path of a train in Times Square on Jan. 15 by Simon Martial—an emotionally disturbed homeless man.
While New Yorkers demonize the men and women who sleep on reverberating train benches and linger, or are slumped by dirt-laden staircases with open, outstretched hands, the question remains: What is it really like to live that harsh life?
Kenneth Divers has spent more than two decades at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, mostly focused on buses and trolleys for the nation’s sixth-largest transit system.
But with SEPTA among the transportation agencies increasingly turning attention to social services, Divers last March started a newly created job there assisting people with mental illness, homelessness and drug addiction at stations in and around Philadelphia.
“We have to rethink our business model,” Divers, who now leads SEPTA’s “vulnerable population task force,” told THE CITY. “We can no longer say we are just a basic transportation company.”
In New York, the MTA has stuck to more traditional thinking, with the nonprofit Bowery Residents Committee paid millions of dollars a year by the transit agency and the city’s Department of Social Services to conduct homeless outreach that has repeatedly been criticized by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli as “shoddy.”
“We are a transportation agency,” Janno Lieber, the MTA chairperson and CEO said last week at his confirmation hearing when a state senator demanded that subway restrooms closed early in the pandemic be reopened.
On Monday, Lieber said riders are feeling “vulnerable” from what he called “all-too-frequent interactions with New Yorkers struggling with mental health issues.”
“We have compassion for the most vulnerable people in our city,” Lieber said. “But we also recognize that our riders are coming face to face with a crisis and something must be done.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams pledged this month to send state-sponsored outreach workers and more NYPD officers into the country’s largest subway system.
Of course they get a puff piece about them. In reality the homeless and mental Ill have taken over the subway system. Prevent hard working Nyers from getting to work, scaring people, making people deal with PTSD from being victims. Face it the city let a small percentage of people that are homeless and mentally ill rule the city while 8 million people live in fear.
^ And the crazy part is that those working NY’ers are also paying billions in taxes that NYC uses every year to house, feed and help the homeless.
Literally, the victims are paying the crooks to victimize them and make their life miserable. What a system huh? And what’s even funnier is that those same NY’ers vote for that set up too.
I don't think the presence of police on the subway platforms is enough of a deterrent. It's not like seeing a cop will automatically cure these people of their mental issues and cause them to think rationally.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
^ And the crazy part is that those working NY’ers are also paying billions in taxes that NYC uses every year to house, feed and help the homeless.
Literally, the victims are paying the crooks to victimize them and make their life miserable. What a system huh? And what’s even funnier is that those same NY’ers vote for that set up too.
A city of retards.
Correction. Our taxes go towards non-profits which skim billions off the top to pay their wealthy political insiders off while spending a fraction on their agendas. just look at corrupt cuomo and his foundation or the deblasios. they've been audited and there's still billions unaccounted for.
There's a class of people (in "non profits") and their political enablers. That keep this racket going. It's a lucrative business for some. They steal taxpayer money and pretend to help/solve the homeless issue.
The first thing that has to happen is that they be aggressively removed from the subway system and, better, prevented from entering in the first place.
Correction. Our taxes go towards non-profits which skim billions off the top to pay their wealthy political insiders off while spending a fraction on their agendas. just look at corrupt cuomo and his foundation or the deblasios. they've been audited and there's still billions unaccounted for.
Besides the shady non-profits, the city does spend billions housing the homeless in various type of shelters, housing and hotels. I know the city also has built a ton of new housing units throughout the city to house the homeless. New housing for the homeless paid for by us while the rest of us has to live in basements, rooming houses, rooms divided by curtains, on couches of family members, etc. Ain’t life under full Democrat control wonderful?
The first thing that has to happen is that they be aggressively removed from the subway system and, better, prevented from entering in the first place.
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