The city wants the MTA to shut down overnight nearly a dozen stations at the end of subway lines as part of a new strategy to get homeless people off trains and into services.
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NYPD and Department of Homeless Services will hit terminal stations at 10 locations between midnight and 5 a.m. to talk to homeless people who are seeking refuge onboard trains.
A spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday evening that the city's homeless outreach teams will get "more direct engagement" to homeless people if the last stop is closed to commuters.
The terminal stations the city will target:
- Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue on the D and F lines
- Flatbush Ave-Brooklyn College on the 2 and 5 lines
- Jamaica-179th Street on the F line
- Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer on the E line
- World Trade Center on the E line
- 96th Street-2nd Ave on the Q line
- Pelham Bay Park on the 6 line
- Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street on the 1 line
- Wakefield-241st Street on the 2 and 5 lines
- Woodlawn on the 4 line
The city also announced that it is opening 200 Safe Haven beds that connect homeless people with services.
“We are doing everything we can to strengthen our subway and street outreach to ensure that every New Yorker who needs a place to sleep will get one," de Blasio said in a statement.
The MTA's transit chief, Sarah Feinberg, last week said she was frustrated at homeless people seeking refuge in the subway and "losing patience," calling on the city to take aggressive steps to address it.
MTA spokeswoman Abbey Collins in a statement said she was happy the city "Agreed to do more to provide safe shelter for homeless NYers as we have been asking for months," but did not address the city's call to shut down stations at the end of subway lines.
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