A mental health program that pairs police with nurses and outreach workers to provide services for homeless New Yorkers in the subway system has resulted in over 100 involuntary removals in its first six months in operation.
Since launching in late August, the Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness or PATH teams have interacted with 11,000 individuals in the transit system, 144 of which ended in police initiating a transport to a hospital against their will, according to information provided to Crain’s by the mayor’s office.
The units, a combination of police officers and Department of Social Services workers, patrol subway stations in Manhattan from 8 p.m. until noon looking for unsheltered individuals who may need assistance. The so-called co-response team is one of several outreach models Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have pursued as part of their separate but closely-aligned subway safety agendas. On Thursday, Adams touted the teams at a press conference where he called for more power from state lawmakers to involuntarily remove individuals from the transit system.
The program is small; just three PATH teams are on patrol at any given time of night in Manhattan. Since August, they’ve provided “services” in 3,000 cases, which could range from offering a pair of new socks or some food to medical care, a referral to shelter or voluntary or involuntary removal, Adams said on Thursday. That includes 168 people who were taken to a hospital voluntarily, according to William Fowler, mayor’s spokesman.
Workers have also referred more than 1,000 individuals to “safe settings,” which can include a shelter bed, low-barrier bed, or a drop-in center, where an individual can clean themselves, Fowler said. The teams do not track how many individuals actually showed up for shelter, he said.
A similar state-backed team that uses transit police, the Subway Co-Response Outreach Teams, is also operating in the city, supported by $20 million from Albany.
In 2024, police and outreach workers initiated more than 7,700 removals citywide, the largest plurality, 2,300 taking place in Manhattan, according to a report released by the city in January. More than 7,000 were initiated by police, and over 800 took place in the transit system. Close to 4,000 of those removed were Black.
