For immediate release Monday, June 15, 2020 Contact: Press@cfthomeless.org NEW YORK, NY — The following statement from the Coalition for the Homeless is in response to the MTA’s Office of the Inspector General report on the homeless outreach program. “The latest report from the MTA’s Office of the Inspector General reinforces that more police officers and more outreach workers are not the solution to the tragedy of homeless New Yorkers bedding down in the transit system. Instead of funneling millions of dollars into an outreach and enforcement initiative that aims to push homeless people out of the transit system and out of sight, the City and State must invest more resources into permanent housing and low-threshold safe haven shelters so homeless New Yorkers actually have somewhere better to go. By continuing to approach homelessness as a quality of life issue for housed New Yorkers instead of as a manifestation of a housing and social services system that has utterly failed far too many low-income people of color, we will continue to squander public resources without actually helping address the underlying issues that have created modern mass homelessness,” said Jacquelyn Simone, Policy Analyst with Coalition for the Homeless. ###
