By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday announced a new public safety and social services outreach initiative aimed at connecting homeless New Yorkers living in the City subway system with shelter and other resources.
The initiative — known as Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness (PATH) — brings together members of the City Police Department Transit Bureau, City Department of Homeless Services, and NYC Health + Hospitals to help link those in need to care. Launched in August, 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. While in the field, the interagency PATH teams engage everyone they see who appears to be unsheltered, offering individualized support based on the person’s expressed or observed challenges. The program will be expanded in the months to come, Adams pledged.
Administration officials said that PATH is a major advancement in the City’s embrace of “co-response” — a crisis response model gaining traction nationally, in which police are paired with clinical professionals to engage with members of the public in need of medical care and/or social services. Participating police officers receive specialized training in crisis de-escalation and allow their clinical partners to take the lead once safety is assured. While co-response is not meant to replace traditional outreach conducted without police involvement, in certain situations, the presence of police affords clinicians a greater sense of personal safety. Co-response also greatly enhances the ability of a clinician to initiate transport to a hospital for evaluation in circumstances where an individual exhibits symptoms of mental illness presenting a danger to self or others, Adams noted.
Since its launch, members of the co-response PATH team have engaged with over 1,550 unhoused New Yorkers, with over 500 New Yorkers directly connected to services, ranging from shelter, meals, and medical help. Additionally, members of the NYPD issued 18 summonses and removed 190 people from the transit system for various violations of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s rules of conduct or State law.
The PATH program supplements Subway Co-Response Outreach Teams (SCOUT), an initiative the city operates in collaboration with MTA Police. In March 2024, the City and the MTA announced plans to expand SCOUT to 10 teams operating in daytime hours throughout the subway system by the end of 2025. That expansion is underway and on schedule. While there is a difference in the focus of the two programs, the combination and coordination of PATH and SCOUT will allow for the implementation of co-response at more hours and with greater coverage of the extensive subway system.
“Helping homeless individuals is more complex than just calling 911,” said City Councilwoman Lynn Schulman (D-Forest Hills), chairwoman of the Health Committee. “It requires a comprehensive response that includes mental health and social service professionals, who are best able to help New Yorkers in need. That is why today’s newly-announced initiative to assist unsheltered individuals in the city’s subway system is such an important step. Similar to the city-state program, called SCOUT, which has been a great success, I look forward to seeing comparable results for the PATH program.”
