A nonprofit running what has been slammed as largely ineffective homeless outreach efforts in the subway system is slated to get an even fatter city contract this summer to keep up the work, officials confirmed Thursday.
The city’s Department of Homeless Services has agreed to re-up and expand its program with the group, the Bowery Residents’ Committee, offering $68 million to extend its outreach over the next three years despite mounting outside criticism of the effort.
The deal would mark a whopping 69 percent increase from the current $40.6 million, three-year contract the city has struck with the nonprofit, which is expiring at the end of the month, The City first reported. The larger contract will cover the increasing of homeless services and the hiring of more outreach workers, according to DHS.
“Outreach to unsheltered New Yorkers during these unprecedented times is our city’s top priority — and our outreach teams continue engaging New Yorkers in need 24/7/365, to help them off the streets and into shelter,” said DHS spokeswoman Arianna Fishman in a statement.
The new contract, which involves a partnership with the MTA, comes on the heels two recent audits criticizing the program’s failing efforts to get homeless New Yorkers out of the subways and into care.
A report released this week by the MTA’s inspector general described BRC’s work in the subways as “very expensive” and “minimally effective.”
The 10-person teams of MTA cops and social workers from BRC lured just three transients out of the system per station per night as police racked up overtime, according to the IG’s office.
The MTA meanwhile had not instituted proper oversight to track the program’s impact, according to the report. The city and MTA had no idea as to whether homeless who actually did accept help received temporary or permanent shelter, or just ended up back in subway stations.
That report followed a separate audit from State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli in January that billed BRC’s outreach in as a poorly supervised “failure,” with staff failing to show up for station checks.
The IG’s office found that bus and subway rider complaints involving homelessness only increased in the second half of 2019, while homeless-related delays remained largely unchanged from the previous year.
The new contract will bring a “redoubling” of efforts to help homeless at end-of-the-line subway stations to complement hundreds of additional safe haven and stabilization beds, the DHS said. The terms of the deal also include “clearly defined performance metrics and oversight provisions” to hold BRC more closely accountable, according to the department.
The ramped-up effort comes as the MTA continues its unprecedented nighttime subway closures that Gov. Andrew Cuomo implemented last month, in part, to more easily clear out homeless from the subways during the coronavirus pandemic.
With all riders forced to leave the system when it closes between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., outreach workers and cops have managed to get 2,300 homeless individuals to accept referrals to shelter services, over a 40-day window between May 5 and June 14, according to DHS.
The state-controlled MTA pitched in several million annually toward the current contract, but has not yet agreed to make the same financial commitment toward the new deal expected to take effect on July 1, MTA spokesman Tim Minton said.
While the MTA has pledged to do a better job overseeing BRC’s work, it has put the onus on the city to address the homeless crisis, arguing it’s a problem beyond the responsibility of a transportation authority.
“The city needs to step up efforts and achieve real results in providing services for the homeless who have sought to use the subway system as a shelter of last resort,” Minton said in a statement.
“As the Inspector General bluntly and correctly observed this week, the MTA is a transportation organization, not a provider of social services, which are entirely the obligation of NYC’s Department of Homeless Services and other city agencies.”