Swept under the rug: Without transparency, encampment sweeps can’t work properly

Comptroller Brad Lander has released an audit of the results of Mayor Adams’ signature program of homeless encampment sweeps and says the effort “completely failed” by only having three people, (yes, just three!) of the more 2,300 caught up in these sweeps placed in permanent housing.

However, the goal here was not about finding apartments, but to dismantle the unsanitary shantytowns from popping up around the city on public and private property. West Coast cities may accept this degrading situation. Adams is right that New York will not.

No one expected the city to snap its fingers and redirect an unfortunately long trajectory of difficulty in getting encampment dwellers, most of whom have substance abuse problems, into shelter. Issues of trust and processing capacity that take time to address.

It is very difficult and labor-intensive to bring people who have spent sometimes years in homelessness to accept services, and no one disputes that. On the downside, sweeps have reportedly featured city workers throwing away people’s belongings without much recourse and the final decisions are made by the NYPD. And while a third of encampments have reappeared, two-thirds haven’t, which is a victory.

We thought then and think now that a version of this program can be positive for both the city and those in encampments, which is why we urged for it to be transparent and adaptive, so as to respond to feedback and challenges and help the most people possible. The only way for the public to assess success and help provide that feedback is with concrete data, which is why, for about a year, we’ve been pushing the administration to proactively and in real time release numbers like the ones that the comptroller published.

We’ve specifically asked for continuous release of numbers like average length of stay for individuals brought into shelter and the number of encampments that were reconstituted after being cleared. The administration seems to think that giving a reporter a brief look once, eight months ago, is enough. It’s not.