Al Jazeera
“Making sense of the world, one story at a time. Host Malika Bilal and journalists from Al Jazeera's international bureaus and beyond share their take on the most important stories. This week, The Take features Peter Malvan, Homeless Advocate in the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project."AMNY
“‘Neil’s plight mirrors that of many other homeless New Yorkers, who find themselves harassed, exhausted, and worn down because of Mayor Adams’ Broken Windows effort to get homeless people out of sight. And maybe that’s the point. These sweeps are designed not to help people, but to break spirits. Mayor Adams and Commissioner Jenkins must stop these sweeps and offer people permanent homes,’ Karim Walker said, an outreach worker and organizer with the Safety Net Project.”Gothamist
“Clients often describe hostile behavior from city benefits workers and say their cases are regularly closed for no reason, a report from the Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center found.City Limits
“Every one of these deaths is a tragedy that was likely preventable,” said Peter Malvan, a homeless rights advocate with the Safety Net Project. “Housing is a basic human need, and housing is what homeless New Yorkers need—not constant harassment by city agencies.”Manhattan Times
“The MTA rules the mayor plans to rely on are unlawful and discriminate against homeless New Yorkers,” [Peter] Malvan [of the Safety Net Project] said in a statement. “This approach is wrongheaded, and unlawful, and is a frightening path to criminalization.Next City
"Advocates for people experiencing homelessness quickly denounced the plan, pointing out that the subway is used as respite from the cold and an alternative to dangerous shelters. “Forcing people off the trains into the freezing cold does not help the homeless,” an advocate from the Safety Net Project tweeted."The Indypendent
"We also speak with speak with Peter Malvan, who spent 32 years living as a homeless New Yorker. During that time, he lived in the subway systems, in shelters and in parks. And from 1991 to 2011, he worked jobs. Peter has now been housed for the past year and a half. He is the Vice President of Midnight Run and a homeless advocate with the Safety Net Project."NY Times
“It’s a horrible tragedy, but that shouldn’t be a pretext for intensifying policing, which is where this will likely go,” said Craig Hughes, a supervising social worker at the Urban Justice Center. “The presence of more police doesn’t necessarily mean more safety, and for many homeless people, it means less safety.”NY Times
But Craig Hughes, a supervising social worker at the Urban Justice Center, said that outreach teams would be hampered by a lack of stable and permanent housing for the homeless population. “It’s to a good degree smoke and mirrors,” Mr. Hughes said. “Provide outreach instead of housing, but frame it as something more, and then flood the trains with cops.”City Limits
But those earlier draft plans, obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request by advocates from the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project and shared with City Limits, offer a look at the city Health Department’s initial recommendations for the moves, at odds with how the actual transfers have been carried out since.© 2024 Urban Justice Center | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
