Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at the mental health shelters that struggle to provide services to some residents, including Carlton McPherson, who was charged in a fatal subway shoving last week.
It was another in a recent spate of violent crimes on the subway: Carlton McPherson, 24, was arrested and charged with murder last week after the police said he pushed a 54-year-old stranger into an oncoming No. 4 train.
Before the fatal encounter, McPherson had stayed at specialized homeless shelters designed to help people with severe mental illness. In total, the city has 38 such facilities, with around 5,500 beds. The shelters cost the city about $260 million annually.
But interviews with residents revealed that those who stayed there received only sporadic mental health services, and a review of four years of records at the shelters showed that violence and disorder were commonplace.
The Times’s examination found:
Fifty people died in the mental health shelters from 2018 to 2021; about half of the deaths occurred after suspected drug overdoses.
Eight people staying at the shelters died by suicide.
More than 1,400 fights occurred. More than half of them resulted in serious injury.
More than 40 rapes, attempted rapes or sexual assaults were reported to have occurred inside the shelters.
More than 40 fires were reported at the shelters. Half of them appeared to have been set deliberately.
A spokeswoman for the Homeless Services Department said the agency tries to connect shelter residents with mental health services, but its primary mission is providing emergency housing.
At a Bronx facility where McPherson recently stayed, at least nine shelter residents have died since 2018, and there were reports of more than 62 life-threatening injuries and hospitalizations.
Fellow residents of the shelter said it was clear that McPherson’s mental health problems were not being addressed while he was there. “That man needed help,” said Roe Dewayne, who was there at the time.
Resources were scarce, according to interviews with current and former employees. In a communal dormitory setting, up to 20 residents were placed in a room. Many who were in need of intensive mental health services were sent to hospitals, where they were sometimes released just hours later.
McPherson had been arrested before. The police said he was charged at the age of 16 with assaulting another teenager with brass knuckles in the Bronx. While staying at a different homeless shelter in Brooklyn last year, he was arrested and charged with assaulting a security guard with a walking cane.
On March 25, on a No. 4 train platform in East Harlem, McPherson pushed a man he did not know into an oncoming train without provocation, the police said. The man, Jason Volz, 54, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Violent attacks by homeless, mentally ill people are relatively rare, but a string of recent incidents has some New Yorkers on edge.
Mayor Eric Adams, who has made public safety a cornerstone of his agenda, announced last week that the city would soon begin hiring clinicians to dispatch mental health workers throughout the subway system.
But similar efforts have yielded mixed results. In November, The Times revealed longstanding patterns of lapses in the social safety net for homeless mentally ill people under the care of the city.
In February, the state comptroller echoed those findings in an audit of a state program called Kendra’s Law, which is designed to treat mentally ill people at risk of becoming violent.
The program, started in 1999, was enacted after a man with untreated schizophrenia pushed a woman in front of a subway train.
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METROPOLITAN diary
New soles
Dear Diary:
Years back, my cousin recommended me for a job that she thought I was perfect for. I took my interview suit to the cleaners and got my shoes resoled.
On the day of the interview I made my way from the Bronx to Midtown. I hadn’t bothered to check the weather, and by the time I got off at Columbus Circle, it was pouring.
I bought an umbrella at the station, but the wind had turned it inside out before I reached Seventh Avenue, rendering it useless. I walked the rest of the way uncovered.
When I was a block away from the building I was going to, I felt a draft on my right foot. Looking down, I saw that the newly finished sole had separated and was coming off. With every step, it flapped down and dragged against the pavement.
I decided to remove it completely. The only thing separating my toes from the New York City streets now was a thin layer of fabric.
I finally arrived at my destination drenched, walking with a slight limp. I was a complete mess. The lone bright spot was that my portfolio had kept my résumé from getting wet.
I bombed the interview. Sitting in an air-conditioned office with a damp suit on, I could not focus. Feeling every thread of the carpeting against my toes didn’t help. My cousin never mentioned anything, but I can only imagine the feedback she received.
As I climbed the stairs at the subway station near home, the fabric at the bottom of the shoe finally gave way. I walked the three blocks home with my right foot completely exposed.
— Henry Suarez
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. Ed Shanahan will be here tomorrow.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The story in New York Today on Thursday about the refurbishing of the museum in Ellis Island misstated the role of the Statue of Liberty- Ellis Island Foundation. It works in partnership with the National Park Service, which operates the museum; it does not operate the museum itself.
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