New York City’s former social services commissioner actively covered up unlawful overnight stays at the city’s lone intake facility for homeless families as a rising number of migrants began seeking emergency shelter in summer 2022, according to a report published Tuesday by the NYC Department of Investigation.
The 18-month probe found then-Department of Social Services Commissioner Gary Jenkins failed to notify Mayor Eric Adams’ office and the nonprofit Legal Aid Society after at least four families spent the night at the Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing intake center in the Bronx on the night of July 18, 2022, a violation of state shelter rules.
The investigation was launched after Jenkins’ former spokesperson publicly revealed his alleged efforts to mislead City Hall and the public about the problems.
Jenkins and his chief of staff falsely denied to Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom’s staff that families were sleeping at PATH, which caused City Hall to “not have a complete understanding of what had occurred,” the report said.
Jenkins resigned in February 2023 and did not respond to a phone call and text requesting comment.
“The report recognizes the formidable challenges at the outset of this crisis which completely overwhelmed our entire system,” said DSS spokesperson Neha Sharma.
Investigators also found shoddy record-keeping by DSS made it impossible to know how many families spent the night at the PATH office. State rules prohibit the city from forcing families with children to sleep overnight at the intake center and require the city to transport them to temporary shelters.
DSS’ practice of misleading the public dates back to former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure, when the agency deliberately suppressed key data to paint a rosier picture of the city’s handling of its homelessness crisis, according to the report.
The Department of Investigation found that DSS officials working under de Blasio and then-Commissioner Steve Banks…
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