For a yr, I labored with the homeless in New York City. Over the course of that yr, I encountered greater than 200 unhoused folks.
Only three ended up in everlasting housing.
Our crew consisted of me, a social employee; two case managers; and a nurse.
Our nurse carried Narcan.
We coordinated with shelters, hospitals and metropolis businesses.
We did psychosocial assessments, led crisis intervention and made housing referrals.
We have been the precise form of outreach crew that Mayor Mamdani’s administration is placing ahead as the answer to New York’s homelessness crisis.
This is why I’m deeply involved about the mayor’s proposal.
Mamdani’s plan focuses on ending encampment sweeps and shifting to a housing-first method by his proposed Department of Community Safety, utilizing outreach groups with social staff to join folks to supportive or rental housing and implementing crisis facilities in subway stations.
The mayor’s rhetoric fails to grapple with the actuality on the floor. I did this work. I believed in it. And I watched it fail the very folks it was meant to assist.
Seeing New York pursue that form of initiative once more violates my social and moral tasks each as an observant Jew and a social employee.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani makes a junk fees-related announcement at the Whitney Museum of American Art on January 21, 2026, in New York. Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock
Trying to assist
The folks I served have been women and men starting from age 18 to their 70s.
They included immigrants fleeing cartel violence, veterans, folks lately launched from jail, people with extreme psychological sickness, folks with bodily disabilities, ladies escaping abuse and LGBTQ youth rejected by their households.
My colleagues and I’d stroll round sure homeless hubs and go into subway stations, hospitals, homeless shelters and parks, making an attempt to get the women and men who had no place of their very own into housing.
Here are a few of the tales, utilizing pseudonyms, to defend the shoppers:
* Mario was an 18-year-old who had been identified with schizophrenia a couple of years earlier than and had simply graduated from highschool. He was from a staunchly spiritual Catholic household that kicked him out of the home when he disclosed he was homosexual. Mario had no employable abilities. He had been getting Social Security incapacity advantages that his dad and mom didn’t give him entry to, and he’d discovered his means to a males’s shelter, not understanding how to navigate the tasks of maturity between his schizophrenia and being on the spectrum. He disclosed that his mother did every part for him and that his stepdad was verbally abusive; he wished to return house as a result of he was bullied and harassed in the shelter and feared for his life, however his mom mentioned he couldn’t dwell together with his household as a result of he was homosexual.
* Julio was an 18-year-old who escaped his city in South America. He had watched his finest buddy die whereas treading water as they tried to come to the United States to escape the cartels who wished him to use the diploma he hoped to get hold of in pharmacology to distribute medication, all of which I discovered by conducting a psychosocial examination utilizing a translator. He was decided to work, study English, get hold of asylum and escape the trauma he witnessed at house. He saved to himself in the shelter, fearing damage or dying by different residents due to his nationality and want to by no means take part in medication.
* Olga, a Ukrainian girl nearing 40, whom we encountered residing on a park bench in Brooklyn, was an addict who mentioned that her ex had abused her whereas excessive. They determined to get therapy individually, leaving their daughter to be raised by her paternal grandmother as a result of it was safer for her. Unfortunately, Olga was nonetheless heavy into her habit. Although she accepted our provide to get her off the streets and right into a ladies’s shelter, she determined that our crew ought to advocate for her to regain custody of her daughter instantly, earlier than reaching sobriety, which she required to get right into a household shelter the place her daughter can be protected. Olga mentioned to us that she wanted her daughter to make her life higher, not to make sure that her daughter was protected. After per week in the shelter, she disappeared, and we searched the space the place we had encountered her, however couldn’t discover her.
* James, a black Army veteran in his 60s, whereas caring for his cancer-stricken spouse, entrusted his life financial savings, property and automobile to an outdated Army buddy. His supposed buddy then used his energy of lawyer to steal all of James’ possessions, leaving him with no penny to his identify as he handled the dying of his spouse. He ended up in a shelter the place we encountered him and helped him get right into a veterans house, as a result of the Department of Veterans Affairs failed him.
* Tony, a Caucasian man in his early 30s, lived in a household shelter together with his 8-year-old autistic daughter after his spouse died and he misplaced his job making an attempt to look after all of her wants alone. Tony discovered a job and, with the assist of our crew, discovered housing close to his place of employment that allowed his daughter to attend the college that was assembly her wants after almost two years of being unhoused.
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* Antionette was a transgender black feminine in her late 20s whose household determined that, regardless of her quite a few bodily and psychological well being points, she may not be a part of their lives as a result of she wished to dwell hers as a girl. Antionette was positioned in a males’s shelter as a result of she was born male and was assaulted by the different residents for having each female and male bodily attributes. We helped her get hold of housing vouchers, however it took months earlier than we discovered a spot that was handicap-accessible and welcoming to her.
* John, a double amputee in his 50s, had misplaced his legs from diabetes and suffered from habit. He bought round in a motorized wheelchair, however a few of the males he shared a room with stole elements of it, leaving him bed-bound.
* Mark, who was in his mid-20s, was launched to a supportive-living condominium after spending a decade in jail. He ended up again behind bars after a month as a result of he couldn’t preserve his psychological well being wants, even with help.
* Lloyd, a Jamaican man in his 50s, had been residing on the streets for greater than 10 years. He refused to enter a shelter, even when the temperatures have been under freezing, due to the violence he witnessed in them. “Get me a ticket home,” he’d repeat each time my crew and I approached him. “When my girlfriend and I broke up 15 years ago here in Brooklyn, she took my stuff, including my passport and money. I don’t want to go into a shelter or an apartment. I want a plane ticket to Jamaica.” He refused our assist in getting housing and wouldn’t hear after we defined what he wanted, akin to an ID, to get on a airplane.
* Joseph, a Caucasian man in his late 20s, overdosed proper in entrance of me on a Friday morning. Our nurse, fortunately, was with the crew that day and administered Narcan, warning him of the risks of utilizing illicit substances. The following Monday, she had to administer it to him once more.
* One chilly winter day, my colleague and I have been on our break in her automobile in an space recognized to be a homeless hub. The temperatures have been dangerously low after we encountered Olivia, a “lady of the night” standing on the nook carrying a bustier, underwear and sandals coated by an unbuttoned down coat. She complained that there was no “business” and that she couldn’t eat, however nonetheless refused our assist after we supplied meals and shelter.
* At the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, we tried to assist an 18-year-old black girl who admitted to being mentally unwell. She requested us to assist her get an abortion and instructed us she was raped on the streets and couldn’t have a child as a result of she wasn’t secure and wanted assist. We bought her admitted to the hospital, from which she disappeared after 24 hours. We couldn’t discover her, regardless of looking for her for a month.
Homeless encampment positioned beneath Guider Avenue overpass by the Belt Parkway in the Brighton Beach part of Brooklyn, New York. Paul Martinka
Equity of care
I may go on. Over the course of the yr, I entered many subway stations, hospitals, shelters and parks and even traveled to the notorious Wards Island with the categorical purpose of getting folks off the streets and into housing.
I encountered folks surrounded by soiled needles, women and men who hadn’t bathed in months, and immigrants who sought sanctuary, all of whom hoped for a greater life.
I’m not arguing in opposition to compassion.
I’m arguing in opposition to phantasm.
To really and successfully assist those that live on the streets, we’d like to enhance psychological well being care, enhance training round caring for the mentally unwell, develop packages to give adolescents and younger adults fundamental abilities to allow them to have jobs to help themselves — and, by doing so, assist folks thrive.
We want training for households caring for mentally unwell kinfolk, so younger folks like Mario aren’t deserted at 18 with no abilities and no help.
We want packages that train adolescents and younger adults fundamental life and job abilities earlier than they fall into homelessness.
We want programs that acknowledge that equality of distribution isn’t fairness of care.
Mental well being care can not thrive in a socialist surroundings.
Socialist programs have a tendency to prioritize uniformity and standardization to guarantee equality. Mental sickness, nevertheless, requires (1) extremely individualized therapy plans, (2) flexibility in frequency, modality and depth of care and (3) fast adjustment when signs change.
In a socialist society, psychological well being providers are rationed due to restricted assets. There are lengthy waitlists for psychiatrists and remedy. Crisis care is prioritized over preventive care. There is proscribed entry to specialised clinicians.
As somebody who has handled these with extreme despair, psychosis or suicidality, delays will not be inconvenient; they’re deadly. Therapy isn’t interchangeable labor. A foul match can worsen signs.
As a social employee, I’m educated to look not solely at my shoppers, but additionally at the programs surrounding them. Human beings are formed by biology, psychology, surroundings, tradition and trauma. Ignoring any one in all these elements leads to failure.
As an observant Jew, I’m guided by the commandment “Justice, justice you shall pursue.” Justice isn’t performative compassion. It isn’t ideological purity. It isn’t insurance policies that sound humane whereas quietly abandoning those that can not conform to them.
Reprinted with permission from Tablet journal.
