NEW YORK, NY – The following statement is in response to Mayor de Blasio’s announcement today of Outreach NYC, a new, city-wide, multi-agency effort to train City Agency staff to request outreach assistance via 311 when they observe individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness. “The Mayor’s grand outreach plan is to implement mass surveillance of homeless New Yorkers, without necessary additional investments in real solutions like housing or low-threshold shelters. This is not a plan to ‘help’ anyone — it is a chilling and counterproductive plan to try to drive the problem out of sight,” said Giselle Routhier, Policy Director at Coalition for the Homeless.
