It’s a Christmas miracle. The editorial board of the New York Post and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez agree on something. Former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton posted a photo to Twitter of an E-train car at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue occupied by presumably homeless people, covered in blankets, their possessions scattered across the seats and floor. “Imagine the cops’ frustration with no support to deal with it!” Bratton wrote.
“Of course they’re frustrated,” AOC rightly responded. “It’s not policing’s job or purpose to address housing, provide healthcare or counseling, or solve the reasons people sleep on the subway.”
But even miracles have limits. AOC undermined her insight with the next line: “Maybe if we shifted some of that $11B/year spent on robo dogs to housing services we could get somewhere.” Ah, yes, if only we defunded the police. Never mind that the city spends roughly $2 billion a year on homeless services, not counting the millions, millions more spent on other outreach services. The problem is not money. The problem is Mayor de Blasio took Steven Banks, a man who spent his career suing the city over people being forced to take shelter and put him in charge.
AOC has also supported several other policy solutions for police reform, including an end to qualified immunity that shields officers from legal accountability and the transfer of military equipment to police departments. The NYPD’s budget is set to rise again from $5.22 billion to $5.43 billion in 2022.
That’s an increase of over $200,000, but still down from the $6 billion 2020 budget for the police. The police budget represents about 5.5 percent of the city’s total spending on programs for 2022. The city’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) has a budget of $2.15 billion, up about $100,000 from last year’s $2.05 billion. The budget for homeless services has decreased from $2.18 billion in 2019 under the outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. The city’s DHS budget makes up about 2 percent of New York’s social services budget. NYCHA’s budget is set to go up from about $2.6billion to $2.8billion in 2022.
Sewell is joining the department during a time when murders, rapes, felony assaults, and grand larcenies are on the upswing. During the week ending December 19, there were 11 murders in the city, a 37 percent year-over-year increase. Rapes increased 32 percent after 37 people were victimized during the same period. Overall, murders are up 2.7 percent, rape is up 3 percent, and overall crime is up 5.7 percent in the city over last year. Already this year, 464 people have been murdered in the Big Apple, and 1,450 others have been raped, according to NYPD data. Another 13,308 New Yorkers have been robbed and 22,104 have been the victims of felony assault.
The Bowery Mission, a charity that helps the unhoused in the city, claims that one in every six people in New York City is homeless, a total of nearly 80,000, adding that among adults, homelessness is at an all-time high. They also claim that at least 2,400 people sleep on the New York City streets every night. That extends to the youngest New Yorkers, as nearly one in every three children in the city lives below the poverty line.