Cuomo Orders That Homeless Be Taken to Shelter in Freezing Weather
By ANNIE CORREAL
JAN. 3, 2016
As an arctic front barreled toward the New York City region, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed an executive order on Sunday requiring local governments across the state to take homeless people off the streets to shelters in freezing temperatures.
The order, which goes into effect early Tuesday, requires local governments to remove homeless people by force, if necessary, once the temperature drops to 32 degrees Fahrenheit or below. The governor’s order says that to protect public safety, “the state can take appropriate steps, including involuntary placement.”
“It’s about love. It’s about compassion. It’s about helping one another and basic human decency,” Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, told NY1.
News of the measure rippled across the state, eliciting a variety of responses from advocates even as it raised questions about how the order would be carried out. In New York City, the mayor’s office said the order appeared to duplicate what the city was already doing to protect homeless people during cold weather and questioned the legality of forcible removal, signaling yet another rift in the tense relationship between Mr. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, a fellow Democrat. “We support the intent of the executive order,” the mayor’s press secretary, Karen Hinton, said in a statement, “but to forcibly remove all homeless individuals in freezing weather, as the governor has ordered, will require him to pass state law.”
Zachary W. Carter, Mr. de Blasio’s corporation counsel, said in an internal city document that there were three ways to remove people from the street: voluntary entrance into shelter; arrest if a crime was being committed; and involuntary transfer for psychiatric evaluation or treatment if they posed a danger to themselves or others.
“Factors that do not support involuntary treatment include homelessness or mental illness alone; idiosyncratic behavior; conclusory assertions that person poses danger; mere fact that person would benefit from treatment,” the document said.
A similar effort by Mayor Edward I. Koch in the mid-1980s met significant legal obstacles.
Norman Siegel, the veteran civil rights lawyer who fought Mr. Koch’s actions at the time, said he and other advocates would be closely monitoring the implementation of Mr. Cuomo’s order. “The fact that it is below 32 degrees does not give the government permission to take someone off the street,” he said, noting that such action — under the state’s Mental Hygiene Law — requires the police to interview and determine mental capacity before taking a person in custody. “The bottom line if they do the training, and they do the individual assessments, I’ve got no problem with that. But if they do a dragnet, then we’ll have serious legal and policy problems.”
The Cuomo administration said the governor’s executive order would force cities to abide by the state’s Mental Hygiene Law and do the assessments. Alphonso B. David, the governor’s chief counsel, said that police agencies “must comply regardless of what the local district’s policy may or may not be or how well it is or is not managed by the locality.”
It initially seemed the governor was pushing for forcible removal, but Mr. David later clarified that while state law allowed authorities to involuntarily detain individuals deemed to be mentally unstable, “obviously, the order does not mandate involuntary commitment for competent individuals,” he said.
Mr. David suggested that the perceived homelessness crisis in New York City — and Mr. Cuomo’s assertions that Mr. de Blasio has been slow to act — was a major impetus for the executive order.
“There are more than 4,000 homeless individuals living on the streets, with the majority in New York City,” Mr. David said. “State law mandates that safe and clean shelters are provided to both families and individuals.”
New York City’s current policy when temperatures drop to freezing, known as Code Blue, is to increase the number of vans checking for homeless people on the streets and to allow them to forgo the usual intake procedure at shelters and other facilities. In compliance with the Mental Hygiene Law, the city also takes people to hospitals for mental health evaluation if they appear to be in imminent danger.
Temperatures are expected to plummet on Monday, dropping to 15 degrees overnight with wind chills around zero, Patrick Maloit, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said. Highs will be around 30 degrees on Tuesday, the day the measure goes into effect.
Mr. Cuomo’s order follows significant actions by Mr. de Blasio to reduce homelessness by announcing an aggressive plan to move people off the street and into shelter.
Though there are discrepancies over the numbers, a few thousand people are estimated to live on the street, significantly less than the nearly 58,000 staying in shelters overseen by the Department of Homeless Services. But visible homelessness has been the most politically damaging issue to Mr. de Blasio as a mix of homeless people and sheltered panhandlers have filled the sidewalks and subways.
On Sunday, the governor’s staff once again seemed to cast Mr. Cuomo’s action as a forceful response to an unanswered challenge. “This order is only a part of the state’s response to the homeless crisis,” Mr. David said, noting that the state would soon “announce our full plan.”
The Doe Fund, a New York City-based homeless services organization, said it supported the governor’s move, noting its founder had created the fund after two homeless people he knew were denied lifesaving services or unable to gain access to them during the winter. “The governor’s executive order will finally make stories like theirs lessons in history instead of continual, repeating tragedies,” a spokesman for the fund said.
Thomas J. Main, a professor at the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College who studies homelessness, said the order raised administrative challenges. “We’re talking about scooping people up who might be resistant,” he said. “And then what are you going to do? Restrain them at the shelter?”
“This has to be very carefully implemented,” Professor Main added. “It has to be thought through.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/nyregion/cuomo-orders-homeless-people-to-be-taken-to-shelters-in-freezing-weather.html?action=click&contentCollection=N.Y.%20%2F%20Region&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
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