There’s a Good Reason New York’s Homeless Often Sleep in the Subway

Ten years ago, William Burnett often spent his nights sleeping on the New York City subway. It was better than his other option: a shelter on Wards Island where he said two rival gangs, the Bloods and the Latin Kings, were “trying to outdo each other over who could terrorize” the shelter’s homeless occupants.

After members of the Bloods repeatedly tried to extort money he didn’t have, Burnett, now 45, decided he “needed to disappear.”