Cuomo Says MTA Needs to Tackle Increasing Homelessness

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has another task for the MTA: solving homelessness in the subways.

On Friday, he sent a letter to the MTA Board of Directors, citing an increase in the number of homeless New Yorkers in the subway system and in the number of train delays they caused.

“I've never seen it this bad,” the governor said during a press conference call. “I've never seen it this egregious, either on the numbers and the statistics, or as a matter of visibility.”

There were 2,178 homeless New Yorkers in the subway system, according to the latest federally-mandated count conducted in January. That’s an increase of 23 percent compared to a year earlier. In 2018, trains were delayed 659 times by homeless people walking on tracks and blocking doors, according to the MTA.

But homeless advocates such as Giselle Routhier, policy director at the Coalition for the Homeless, said Cuomo needs to do more to help stem the homelessness crisis in the city. Over the past several years, the city has been covering more and more of the cost of addressing homelessness while the state's share has dropped.

“If Gov. Cuomo wants to help fix this problem, he needs to step up with more housing resources at the state level,” Routhier said.