#StoptheSweeps
Stop the Sweeps: A Letter to Mayor de Blasio
June 25, 2021
Dear Mayor de Blasio,
We the undersigned demand an immediate end to “street sweeps” of our homeless neighbors and their belongings in New York City. As our city reopens after a traumatic pandemic that has shown us how vulnerable and interdependent we all are, we have a chance to change the way we treat the most vulnerable and traumatized among us. We can move from a policy of dehumanization and neglect to one centered on dignity and trust. We believe the City is missing this chance, and we urge the Mayor and his administration to change course.
In response to a false narrative portraying the presence of homeless people on our streets as a threat to the safety and “quality of life” of housed residents, the City has begun stepping up its use of street sweeps, in which homeless individuals and their belongings are removed from areas where they feel the safest, and where their case managers know to find them. These sweeps are unsafe, destabilizing, counterproductive, and against current CDC guidance. The Department of Sanitation often discards homeless residents’ belongings during sweeps, causing residents to lose vital documents and items such as IDs, benefit cards, medical equipment, and prescriptions. Such disruption makes it harder for people to access services and housing, perpetuating their situation instead of relieving it. People living on the street are purposely avoiding congregate shelters, often because they’ve tried them and found them unsafe. The pandemic has made congregate shelters even less safe due to additional risk of infection, and this continues to be a risk for homeless individuals. But make no mistake: unsheltered homeless New Yorkers -- including those experiencing mental health and substance abuse issues -- very much want housing, and they will accept it if they feel it’s safe. Outreach workers need to build trust with unsheltered individuals, which can increase their willingness to accept housing -- but street sweeps do the exact opposite.
There are alternatives to street sweeps: the City could use federal funds available to continue housing people in hotels instead of congregate shelters; underutilized staff at vaccination centers and in the Test & Trace Corps could be re-assigned to drop-in centers; most importantly, the City could embrace a housing-first approach and mandate its agencies to work within that framework. This would include placing people in available units without requiring them to go through a shelter, raising CityFHEPs vouchers, and stopping discrimination against supportive housing applicants with disabilities. However, instead of these more humane options, the City has increased its use of street sweeps, sending out “Mayor’s clean-up crews” to get the city ready for its post-pandemic reopening, and using the NYPD as enforcers. We know when the police are involved in homeless “outreach,” unsheltered New Yorkers are less likely to engage and more likely to be criminalized and harmed. In a particularly ironic twist, the City plans to use federal stimulus money to pay workers to “clean up” encampments, at the same time that it has refused federal funding to extend the temporary hotel shelter program, which has led to better outcomes for homeless New Yorkers.
We call on the City to end the inhumane practice of street sweeps immediately, and instead use the resources at its disposal to provide harm reduction and safe, permanent housing to unsheltered individuals. We demand that the Mayor and his administration shift from a policy of appeasing housed residents and businesses to ensuring collective safety and security for all.
Sincerely,
Upper West Side Open Hearts Initiative
VOCAL-NY
Human.NYC
Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center
Da Homeless Hero
Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann, SAJ-Judaism that Stands for All
SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) NYC
Open New York
Neighbors Together
RxHome
Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing
Picture The Homeless
