Only 5% of people removed from homeless encampments by the Adams administration last year accepted temporary shelter, according to an audit released on Wednesday by the city comptroller’s office — and only three people secured permanent housing since the policy was first enacted.
The audit, which investigated data reported by the Department of Homeless Services, said the department had “limited success” in convincing homeless individuals to seek shelter. It also pointed to DHS’ inability to track data regarding the results of encampment sweeps. Comptroller Brad Lander said that of the 2,308 homeless people who were forcibly removed from their encampments between March and November of 2022, 99.9% remained homeless.
“By every measure, the homeless sweeps failed,” Lander said during a press conference at Tompkins Square Park on Wednesday.
In March 2022, Mayor Eric Adams announced a new policy that created a task force among four city agencies — DHS, the NYPD, the Department of Sanitation, and the Department of Parks and Recreation — to dismantle and remove homeless encampment sites across the city.
The policy aimed to then provide individuals with access to housing and other services. Since it was put in place, there have been more than 200 sweeps, according to Lander’s office.
The city defines an encampment as a public location where one or more homeless people live in an unsheltered area.
In response to the audit, City Hall said the comptroller focused too heavily on the work of DHS and did not investigate work done by other agencies, such as the NYPD, in the encampment sweep task force.
“Despite the inherent difficulty of this work, our efforts have been indisputably successful,” said Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for the mayor. “In the first year of this initiative, New Yorkers experiencing unsheltered homelessness accepted services at six times the rate they did under the previous administration’s approach.”
The audit found that of 99…
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