Mayor Eric Adams wants to revive a Bloomberg-era policy that allowed the city to at least temporarily boot rule-breaking residents from homeless shelters.
The policy was canceled under the de Blasio administration, but Adams plans to revive it as a pilot program at a “few” select adult shelters run by the city Department of Homeless Services, according to city officials and an Adams rep to The Post.
“Every shelter client is entitled to a safe environment on their path to self-sufficiency, and this pilot will help us achieve the high standard of care that clients want and deserve,” the representative said.
Under the pilot program, shelter residents could lose their city-funded housing services for repeatedly engaging in “gross misconduct” — anything from violence to failing to complete housing paperwork to rejecting a viable offer for permanent housing, DSS Commissioner Molly Wasow Park told a city council panel Monday.
“When one of those instances occurs, DHS is going to engage first with the shelter provider and then with the client to understand what has, in fact, really happened,” Park said.
“Was it a viable housing offer, or did a client with a disability, for example, get offered a unit on a fourth floor walk-up — in which case that’s not a viable housing offer,” Park said.
Rule-breaking residents will go through three rounds of notices and meetings before a newly created Enhanced Client Placement Support unit within the DHS will decide their outcome.
Shelter residents who do not shape up could be kicked out of the temporary-housing system for at least 30 days, though the facility would have to let them back in during extreme weather.
“My anticipation is that we will have few if any discharges from shelter, but it really is about building this culture of accountability,” Park said.
Under questioning from progressive Councilwoman Tiffany Caban, Park insisted that shelter providers will also be subject to increased accountability.
The pilot program puts non-compliant shelter providers on a corrective-action plan, and poor performance could hurt their chances of netting future city contracts, Park said.
Caban said she is concerned that the program could unfairly penalize people suffering from mental illness. But Park said there are no mental health-focused shelters targeted in the first phase of the pilot, and the review process includes a medical evaluation.
“The idea is that people who have a disability that would prevent them from making the appropriate choice will not be impacted,” Park said.
DHS hired shelter and legal staff to implement the pilot, Park said.
“We are starting on a very small scale so that we can understand the implications and the workload,” Park said.
A rep for the mayor’s office said the pilot is being funded using a $650 million investment to tackle street homelessness that Adams announced in his State of the City address.
