New efforts to improve quality of life on the streets of New York City

NEW YORK (WABC) -- If you see a homeless person sleeping on the subway, or someone publicly urinating, a local police union wants you to take a picture.

The Sergeants Benevolent Association plans to document the decline of the city and place the blame squarely on city leaders.

"I'm more than willing to work to work with the mayor. But this city is not going back to the way it was," said SBA President Ed Mullins.

How about an afternoon nap, right outside an old mattress on the sidewalk? Or why not pick up a trash can if you can't dig to the bottom of it? Those are the types of photos the union is asking its members in an email to send them in a new initiative called, "Peekaboo, We See You."

"Send it to the website with the location.. we will take the lead in trying to address some of these quality of life issues and more importantly try to establish the trust and relationship between the police and communities of colors," said Mullins.

He says this is a first step in dealing with quality of life issues like public urination and aggressive panhandling, which he believes is caused by the decriminalization of minor offenses. But the SBA isn't the only organization taking an extra step to deal with crime.

"We haven't been patrolling Central Park for 25 years but in the last week I started going in during the day and at night and assessing how bad things have become," said Curtis Sliwa of the Guardian Angels.

But starting Monday night, two six person teams from the Guardian Angels will patrol the East and West sides of Central Park.

"I was even shocked to see some of the problems occurring in broad daylight between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.," said Sliwa.

"I don't think you decriminalize these minor offenses the way they're proposing. I think that's the wrong signal," said former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.

While the NYPD says overall crime is down 5.6% citywide, Kelly says it's the perception that counts.

"New York has to be careful about that. If you keep giving these signals, the perception changes that New York is not the dynamic center of the world that it used to be, that homelessness and other quality of life issues are starting to impact on people, you can see a corporate flight take place," said Kelly.