Mayor Adams says his administration has housed 3,500 unsheltered New Yorkers

Mayor Eric Adams said Monday more than 3,500 New Yorkers who were living unsheltered have moved into housing since he took office in 2022.

Removing people from the streets and subways has been a priority for Adams. He has been particularly focused on outreach for homeless people with serious mental illness.

“Mental health support is needed,” Adams said at a press conference Monday. “We’re providing it in our subways and providing it above ground. And we know that this issue can be resolved if it’s not ignored.”

Several people who work closely with homeless people in the city said any progress in addressing the crisis should be celebrated. But they questioned whether even more progress could have been made with a different approach to homelessness.

“I think there’s a lot more that needs to be understood from this announcement before drawing specific conclusions,” said Philip Yanos, a psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who treats homeless patients. “On its face, it’s positive.”

Adams credited the success in part to an increase in Safe Haven and stabilization beds, which provide a place to sleep for homeless people who are resistant to some of the rules of traditional shelters, like curfews. Safe Havens are intended to provide a more relaxed environment than traditional shelters, with optional services and less frequent check-ins, in hope of enticing reluctant people off the street.

“By most definitions, we would consider someone in a Safe Haven still to be homeless,” Yanos said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Social Services said those placed in Safe Haven and stabilization beds who are counted in the 3,500 number cited by the mayor’s office did later move into permanent housing.

Adams’ administration has deployed police and mental health workers into the subway system following a series of high-profile violent incidents involving people with serious mental illness. He also pushed for a controversial change to state law that made it easier to involuntarily hospitalize people with serious mental illness, which legislators in Albany approved this spring as part of the state budget.

The mayor said in his announcement that about 1,000 people who have secured housing since he took office were living in the subways before. He is running for reelection as an independent this November.

Adams’ administration has also removed thousands of homeless people from encampments and has shared little information about where those people ended up. Between January and September of last year, just 114 of the 3,500 people displaced from encampments were relocated to shelters and none were placed in permanent housing, Gothamist previously reported.

William Fowler, a city hall spokesperson, said the numbers of homeless New Yorkers connected to housing “speak for themselves.”

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution to addressing homelessness, and the Adams administration has taken a holistic approach that prioritizes compassion for those in need over the undignified, prevailing culture of ‘anything goes,’” he said, adding: “ We will continue to advocate for funding proven, successful solutions and remain committed to building on the progress we’ve made.”

Close observers of the city’s response to homelessness said more needs to be done to reduce the number of homeless New Yorkers. There are currently more than 85,000 people living in shelters run by the Department of Homeless Services. Another approximately 4,500 people are unsheltered — more than half of them in the subway system, according to a January count that experts consider to be a conservative tally.

The estimated number of unsheltered New Yorkers has increased since last year and has risen each year that Adams has been in office, city data shows. Will Watts, deputy executive director for advocacy at Coalition for the Homeless, said the increase reflects a flawed response to homelessness.

“What this mayor has done is focused a lot more on doubling down on solutions or responses that we know are not going to yield positive outcomes,” he said. “Seeing more people on the streets or seeing more New Yorkers needing to avail themselves of shelter is a reflection of choosing the wrong policies.”

Watts said the city should prioritize building more affordable housing for extremely low-income New Yorkers. He also said officials should increase access to mobile mental health treatment teams, which he said have long waitlists.

Adolfo Abreu, housing campaigns director at the advocacy group VOCAL-NY, said the city should do more to move people into supportive housing apartments, which offer on-site services to people leaving homelessness, hospitalization and incarceration. The city comptroller’s office reported earlier this year that about 4,000 supportive housing units are vacant.

The mayor’s announcement comes just weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that threatens to slash federal funding for programs that don’t meet his administration’s strict standards to address homelessness, mental illness and addiction. Abreu said it’s urgent for officials and advocates to work together to clear the hurdles to housing with possible federal cuts looming.

“ We need to stop fighting,” he said. “Because more and more people are becoming homeless. More people stand to become homeless, especially with loss of federal dollars, in all parts of the country, but particularly in New York City.”

This story has been updates with a comment from a City Hall spokesperson.