It’s been wrenching to witness the tragic scenario playing out on Midtown sidewalks over the last year. Daily, we see scores of people, many with evidently serious addiction problems, dazed or passed out. Some inject drugs in plain sight. Many mentally disturbed individuals are left to their own devices, wandering without any apparent help for the psychological problems that plague them.
It’s a heartbreaking landscape of pain. It cruelly endangers the lives of these desperate individuals — as well as the safety of innocent passersby. Just recently, Maria Ambrocio, a nurse from New Jersey, was viciously attacked in Midtown and died, allegedly at the hands of a mentally unstable homeless person.
From a human perspective, we’re saddened by these agonizing sights and senseless acts of violence. Yet we’re also business leaders who cannot ignore how all this mayhem, open-air drug abuse and disorder are a taking a toll on New York City’s quality of life and economy.
Midtown serves as a central economic powerhouse generating revenue that benefits the entire city. This human crisis impedes Manhattan’s resilience. It hinders our ability to recover from the economic damage inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic at a critical moment when we need to start bringing workers back into their offices.
Homeless people and individuals with addiction and mental-health issues frequently congregate near major train and bus stations, and in landmark neighborhoods popular with visitors from around the world. Some disturb outdoor diners in restaurants that are trying to recover from nearly two years of hardship. This makes a poor impression on visitors and tourists, not to mention our local employees and residents.
Numbers help tell the story. In the Midtown South Precinct area alone, CompStat data reveal a 43% increase in crime over last year, including a 179% increase in robbery and 144% increase in felony assault. Misdemeanor assault is up 79%, and there have been 11 shootings, compared to one at this point last year.
As heads of Manhattan’s most prominent Business Improvement Districts, we get daily calls, texts and emails from frustrated small businesses, building owners and residents faced with intimidating street conditions adjacent to their properties. It’s harder for them to conduct day-to-day operations. People are afraid to return to their offices or visit the area. The economic heart of our city is becoming known as a place to avoid.
Unfortunately, law enforcement is unable to effectively address this growing problem.
For example, it is not illegal anymore to possess needles used to inject intravenous drugs, or to inject drugs in public. Thus, arrested addicts normally return to the street almost immediately. Shoplifting and theft typically go unpunished. Some individuals have been arrested dozens of times and never prosecuted.
The same degree of passion that advocates have devoted to criminal justice reform must now be devoted to correcting social problems at the street level.
Each of our organizations supports valuable social service initiatives that help troubled individuals such as Community First, Urban Pathways and Breaking Ground. But we’re overwhelmed. The scale of the problem outstrips our capabilities. The city must intervene with new policies and laws addressing this public disorder.
New York needs laws and policies that properly provide for the less fortunate. Today’s policy of not removing individuals from the street involuntarily isn’t working. City Hall needs to revisit it.
Other major cities, such as Los Angeles, face similar issues. But, unlike here, these cities have elevated these challenges into major policy debates.
While remaining sensitive to the problem’s human dimension, we call upon the next mayor and the new City Council — in conjunction with the state — to implement changes that effectively address this crisis. We’re not talking about sending people en masse to Rikers Island. We need a social services strategy that will care for, rehabilitate and house this population. But first and foremost, they must be removed from the streets.
This is our five-point plan:
1. In collaboration with the community, law enforcement, district attorneys and the Center for Court Innovation, develop strategies to correct conditions on our streets including legislative reform and revised tactics that offer diversionary options or punitive actions when appropriate.
2. Increase state psychiatric beds for those who need an institutional setting and in all five boroughs establish well-managed rehabilitation centers providing proper services and oversight.
3. Reform parole guidelines and stop the state from releasing people directly to homeless shelters without a reentry plan.
4. Work with elected officials to revise the bail reform bill.
5. Increase state resources for supportive housing and develop an effective process to quickly get troubled people to settings where they get support.
Our organizations work to stimulate economic growth. But we can’t achieve this goal without a foundation of public safety. Our new elected leaders must tackle this challenge head on.
Blair is president of the Garment District Alliance. Harris is president of the Times Square Alliance. Biederman is president of the 34th Street Partnership. Cerullo is president and CEO, Grand Central Partnership.