Hundreds of volunteers and outreach workers fanned out across New York City’s streets, subways and public parks late Tuesday night for the annual street homeless count.
The yearly point-in-time count comes as a record number of people are residing in the city shelter systems, including 68,000 migrants. Unlike previous years, this year’s count comes as housing and immigrant advocates warned of an increase in migrant homelessness as they face restrictions imposed by Mayor Eric Adams on how long they can shelter in one place.
“I am interested to see if we see anything different tonight,” Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said during a press briefing Tuesday when asked whether unsheltered migrants could increase the final count.
The survey, conducted at the same time every year, is required by the federal government and is meant to inform the city on where to steer resources and funds to help homeless individuals not in shelters.
“When we bring services to people instead of expecting them to go somewhere, it’s much more likely that they’re going to be willing to accept them because people are connected to communities,” Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park said in an interview.
As of Sunday, there were 89,000 adults and children, including some migrants, residing in shelters run by the Department of Homeless Services, city data shows. But that doesn’t include thousands of others who stay in shelters run by other city agencies or by the shelter system the Adams administration propped up for migrants.
Starting late Tuesday and into the early hours on Wednesday, 1,500 volunteers and 200 homeless outreach workers hit the five boroughs in the rain and during a Code Blue to conduct the snapshot survey.
Issa Asiedo, 42, outreach coordinator for BronxWorks, walked up and down residential and commercial streets looking under scaffolding and searching parks to tally up how many people had no place to sleep for the night.
“I feel like this is a…
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