Opinion: Homelessness should never be a death sentence

They have names.

They have hopes and dreams, fears and desires.

They have the same rights to life, liberty and safety as anyone else in this city.

So why don’t we treat them as such?

Why are we all so desperate to avoid interaction, going so far as crossing to the other side of the street instead of crossing paths with them? 

It’s as New York as the chopped cheese from the corner store – staring down through our peripheral vision the homeless person sitting outside that bodega, but never stopping to acknowledge their humanity, be it outwardly or in our own hearts.

Never stopping to understand that one must fall through dozens of cracks in order to land on our streets, in our subways or in our parks. 

Never stopping to realize that homeless New Yorkers are as diverse as the city they struggle to survive in – they are young and old, working and unemployed, intelligent and imbalanced.

A monolith, they are not. But our city’s homeless are a population that far too many of us choose to see only when we feel threatened by their presence. Just open a community newspaper and you’ll see headlines about residents up in arms over plans to build a homeless shelter in the area.

That level of intransigence, despite the best efforts of local nonprofits like Breaking Ground, has spent decades slithering its way through city government, rendering us seemingly paralyzed to the plight of the housing insecure. 

All the while, our neighbors continue to spend their nights on the sidewalk — not living, but just surviving. That is, until Mother Nature comes for the most vulnerable.

For most of us, this month’s historic cold snap has been an annoyance to grumble about. But for 20 New Yorkers, many of whom were homeless, our instinctual inaction and the below-zero weather combined to be their silent killer.

Barbara Szuter, a 64-year-old mother, froze to death in a lonely alley in Canarsie.

Nolberto Jimbo-Niola, 52, was found dead and buried – not under six feet of soil, but under six inches of snow on Junction Playground park bench in Elmhurst.

Charles Williams spent 86 long years on this Earth, only for the senior to succumb to the cold on East Gun Hill Road in Baychester.

They are just three of our neighbors who were only in a position to be killed by the weather because they were first failed by New York City.

As Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in announcing Charles’ death, each loss of life is a tragedy. Myself and every other sensible New Yorker concurs. I have spoken repeatedly with the mayor on this issue, and I can attest to the grief he and the rest of his team shares over all 20 of these tragedies.

I can also understand the pressure of trying to ramp up a new administration in just its fourth full week, while simultaneously attempting to navigate a snowstorm and days of life-threatening cold that follows.

But it is clear that the city’s approach to this winter weather emergency as it relates to our homeless population failed. 

If an apartment building is on fire, presenting an immediate threat to the lives of its tenants, it is the duty of the firefighter to evacuate those tenants and bring them to safety. So when frigid cold, stifling heat or a severe storm presents that same level of danger to those living outside, our response as a city must be the same. 

The reticence by some to involuntarily remove individuals from their surroundings is certainly understandable, especially when past administrations conducted contemptuous sweeps of encampments – actions that saw city workers coldly seize and discard the few possessions owned by the New Yorkers living in them.

But the status quo of both homeless shelter proliferation and the presence of longtime encampments in working-class communities like Jamaica, Stapleton or the South Bronx – occurrences that are rarely, if ever, seen in places like Midtown Manhattan – is absolutely not the answer either.

I’m encouraged by the mayor’s announcement this week that his administration will resume encampment sweeps, but with a renewed sense of respect and without law enforcement at the forefront. While this is a welcomed development, we must holistically reimagine how we make contact with our homeless neighbors, especially during dangerous weather, while also ensuring the shelters they are directed to provide them with the dignity they deserve.

First, when an emergency like this stretch of cold weather strikes, the city must quickly identify and open a sufficient amount of emergency brick-and-mortar shelters in central locations across the five boroughs, specifically tailored to the homeless population. Not just warming buses, but physical spaces where attendees can eat, bathe and speak with a social service representative about their options.

Second, we must significantly boost staffing and training for Breaking Ground and others, whose experts are often the first and best points of contact for those living on the street, especially for homeless individuals with previous encounters with law enforcement. Their work is exactly what has been envisioned for Mamdani’s proposed Department of Community Safety, and I encourage the mayor to make strengthening our homeless outreach efforts a central plank of that agency.

Third, many unhoused New Yorkers decline to be placed in a shelter because, in some ways, the street is a safer place to be. I certainly cannot blame someone for thinking that way, considering the historic disinvestment in our crumbling shelter system.

Far too many of these “safe havens” lack proper security, sufficient social services, internet access or even air conditioning. They are often cold and dismissive, not the warm and inviting places they should be. That is why the administration must prioritize holistic improvements to our shelter system, which in turn will make that critical first step off the street and into the arms of service providers that much easier to take.

We must also see an expansive effort on the state level to reverse the degradation of psychiatric care here in New York City, where there were only about 4,000 inpatient psychiatric beds as of December 2023, according to the state comptroller’s office. Expanding the number of psychiatric beds across the five boroughs must be a centerpiece of this year’s budget negotiations in Albany in order to facilitate critically needed care for New Yorkers experiencing mental health struggles, while improving public safety as a whole.

The safety of every New Yorker, regardless of housing status, is paramount. But that statement rings hollow if we continue to allow homelessness during severe weather to be a death sentence.

With at least two months of winter left and the steamy summer season on the horizon, time is of the essence. So let’s finally break this cycle of disrespect and disinterest. 

Let’s finally treat our homeless neighbors like human beings.