Exclusive: NYPD Homeless Outreach Initiative Seeing Increased Staffing, Results
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The NYPD's new homeless outreach initiative is seeing increased staffing, and results.
More and more nurses are now riding along with officers, hoping to help in a number of ways.
CBS2's Jessica Layton joined them to see the work being done.
On a rainy night, specially trained NYPD officers hit the streets to help the city's most vulnerable, approaching the long-term street homeless not with handcuffs but with humanity.
Officer Vanessa Wanderlingh has been with the citywide Mobile Crisis Outreach Team since it started in 2019.
"Ask them if they had any needs, medical or had they eaten today," she said.
Where the unit goes is based on the public's tips to 311.
"If we get a cluster of calls, that's an indication to us that we want to go visit that area," NYPD inspector Phylis Byrne said.
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This time, it's Wall Street and the Fulton Street station.
Unique to this program, nurses who are paired up with the officers.
NYPD nurse Richard Japitana carries gloves whenever he goes out.
"We examine them physically and mentally," he said. "We have a lot of individuals that we meet that they are really mentally sick, that they appear to be dangers to themselves and others."
When the outreach team was created about a year ago, it had just two nurses. Now there are 24, and they're able to approach and engage the homeless in a way those living on the street may not have experienced before.
"Once they understand, hey, this is a nurse here and they start asking them, how are you feeling today, do you have any issues that you would like me to address ... you can see the homeless person is kind of surprised by that and then they start talking to them," Byrne said.
Byrne admits the biggest challenge is that many refuse help.
"What does it say about our shelter system when these men and women would rather be on the street?" Layton asked.
"It's a difficult situation to be in a shelter with a bunch of people that you don't know," Byrne said.
"Oftentimes, they feel unsafe," Wanderlingh said.
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On this night, an older man wearing a hospital wristband and sandals who has been living in the subway finally agrees to go to a drop-in center.
"I'm so glad you wanna come with us," Wanderlingh told him.
"What do you think it was that made him say, OK, I do need a shelter tonight?" Layton asked.
"I think he really did deep down want to have a place to go, so he just needed someone to coax him a little," Wanderlingh said.
He may be 1 in 60,000 city homeless, but that night, he was one more that had a place to stay.
Last year alone, the outreach team was able to connect more than 200 homeless people with services, including shelters drop-in centers and hospitals.