On January 26, the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) had planned to send 3,000 volunteers to conduct its annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate (HOPE). The agency was forced to cancel the census of the city’s homeless as a powerful blizzard began to hammer the city.
HOPE 2015 has been rescheduled for Monday, Feb. 9th due to a severe winter storm today and into tomorrow. Thanks to all our volunteers!
— NYCHomelessServices (@NYCDHS) January 26, 2015
DHS instead dispatched 15 mobile outreach response teams to find homeless people through the five boroughs and take them to shelter.
“Our outreach efforts are in full force, we have doubled the number of outreach teams that are currently working through the five boroughs to bring anyone who isn’t in shelter into shelter. We ask anyone who you may see who may be in distress, please call 311 and we can dispatch a team to bring them into shelter,” Gilbert Taylor, the department’s commissioner said at a press conference.
“Intake shelters that usually admit individuals based on gender or family will now take walk-ins off the streets, and provide emergency cots. New York has a vast public shelter system, so individual shelters do not run on a day-to-day basis. It’s not like they’re going grocery shopping tomorrow. They have the supplies necessary for these types of crises,” Patrick Markee, deputy executive director for advocacy at New York’s Coalition for the Homeless, told VICE News.
DHS activated ‘Code Blue’, implemented during times of sustained winds and precipitation, to protect unsheltered people throughout the five boroughs. Homeless people can access any of the agency’s adult facilities, including shelters and drop-in centers, without going through the usual intake process.
The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut declared states of emergency ahead of a paralyzing blizzard expected to thump the North-eastern United States with more than 3 feet of snow, coastal flooding and heavy winds expected to cause power outages and make travel unsafe.
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a total shutdown of the New York City subway after a National Weather Service blizzard warning went into effect. Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers “to prepare for something worse than we have seen before”.
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