Mayor Adams touts success of city's outreach program during Mental Health Week
Mayor says outreach teams met up with the homeless 11,000 times over the last 6 months
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared this week "Mental Health Week," and insists the subways are getting safer.
On Thursday morning, Mayor Adams announced that problems with homeless riders are improving.
The announcement comes just one day after the Trump administration threatened to cut federal transportation funding.
The mayor says police and outreach teams met up with the homeless 11,000 times over the last six months, with about 900 people removed from the system as part of the city's Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness (PATH) program that launched in August of 2024.
PATH teams consist of DHS nurses and outreach staff working alongside NYPD transit police who conduct outreach overnight at subway stations across Manhattan from 8 p.m. to 12 p.m. the next day.
The mayor says commuters should see a difference.
"There's a feeling that - 'oh wait a minute - this is pervasive,' but no, this is a small number of people that they have historically ignored," Adams said. "So, I understand that New Yorkers are feeling that way, that's why we decided not to ignore it."
The mayor says mental health outreach is expanding in the city and he expects it to make people feel safer in the subway.
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