#Subway homeless still require ‘tough love’ – not just ‘support’

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams this week announced new homeless outreach social-work teams — dubbed Safe Options Support — to work with the NYPD in city subways. That’s great, but we pray this means tough love, not just “support.”

The teams of up to 10 social workers will “engage” subway vagrants to talk them off trains and into shelters. That will free up cops from such social work so they can target criminality and make transit safe for returning commuters.

But, sorry, police still need to be involved to handle those homeless who won’t budge, and insist on camping out on trains or in stations. There is no right to use vital public spaces as your living room, bedroom or (especially) toilet.

The idea that carrots alone are sufficient is a fantasy pushed by those who have no clue how the real world works. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s multimillion-dollar program to lure the homeless into shelter proved a failure. In a blistering May 2020 report, MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny called the $5 million-a-year program, plus $2.6 million in overtime, a “very expensive” and “minimally effective” bust. Its teams of cops and social workers only cleared an average of three homeless a night into shelters, while dozens stayed on the trains.

Only shutting down the subways overnight during the pandemic was able to clear them out, and even “tough guy” Gov. Andrew Cuomo felt obliged to pretend it was about “deep cleaning,” not forcing the vagrants out.

The nightly closures are gone now, while the homeless are back in full force. The new Hochul-Adams teams won’t be enough.

State law (which should change, though we don’t have high hopes, given the left’s power) may technically prevent police from forcibly removing anyone from the transit system for simple vagrancy, but not for cause.

Between clear threats from mental illness, grossly unsanitary behavior and outright public-nuisance issues, cops have enough freedom to make a difference — if they know the brass will back them up.

It’s inhumane to let subways serve as rolling shelters, and New York’s leaders shouldn’t be afraid to say so, and act on that simple truth.