A man has set up a makeshift shelter on the median of Park Row at Beekman Street — just across from the east entrance to City Hall Park. It is complete with a couch and a dog pen and takes up six feet in each direction at least.

C. said the dog is loosely caged inside, but lunged at his dog as they walked by yesterday.

I have called the Department of Homeless Services and am awaiting a reply.

However, the city cannot force anyone off the street unless they are a danger to others. The loitering law only applies to people possessing a controlled substance or gambling. You also can’t loiter near a school — though of course Pace University is feet from this set-up. From DSS when we had a man who took over a bench in front of BMCC on Park Place in 2020:

“We do not tolerate encampments in our City. While the conditions here were not an encampment, the location has been cleared and we will continue to focus on this area to make sure that these unacceptable conditions do not regenerate. Our outreach teams canvass this area at least once daily, engaging individuals who may be homeless and encouraging them to accept services.”

The department always reminds me of the street homeless policy when I write in and this: “People who are living on the street are our neighbors: it is our collective responsibility to treat them with dignity and learn how we might support them.” It is sometimes hard to get there, but I certainly can appreciate that.

If you see someone who you believe to be experiencing unsheltered homelessness:

• report it to 311 and request outreach assistance.
• express empathy and demonstrate compassion.
• volunteer: www.nycservice.org/search/#s and search by interest using the category “Homelessness and Housing.”
• sign up for the HOPE Survey in January, the city’s annual point-in-time survey of New Yorkers sleeping unsheltered on the streets, which provides HOME-STAT outreach teams with valuable information they use in their year-round efforts

With the Department of Homeless Services’ Joint Command Center, its street homeless outreach program, teams of outreach staff help get people into shelters. It’s often not easy. They canvass Downtown areas five days a week, engaging homeless individuals to offer them services and help them come indoors. Most often the department knows people by name, since they stay in the area.

(I will also add that the Downtown Alliance, the business improvement district that operates largely in Fidi, in a partnership with Trinity Church has contracted with the Bowery Residents’ Committee to supplement work of the city’s Department of Homeless Services. Their district extends up Park Row just to Beekman.)

From DSS: “New Yorkers sleeping on the streets are our most uniquely challenging population to engage. With higher rates of mental health and substance use disorders, medical difficulties and disabilities, and with each individual finding his or her way to the street via different paths, it can take time to bring these individuals indoors from unsheltered environments (several months on average) and involves hundreds of contacts with outreach teams to build the trust and relationship that will result in ultimately accepting services.

“Facing complex, layered challenges, unsheltered individuals may be resistant to accepting services. And accepting outreach efforts is voluntary. In accordance with NYS Mental Hygiene Law, street homeless New Yorkers cannot be involuntarily removed from the streets unless they are posing a danger to themselves or others.”

All street homeless outreach teams have access to:

• licensed clinicians who work with clients on the streets, provide ongoing case management, and assess each individual for immediate risk/crisis during each encounter
• psychiatrists who perform psychiatric evaluations on the streets, as needed, helping understand and better meet the individual needs of each street homeless New Yorker
• substance use resources, including ability to immediately connect individuals to detox and other rehabilitation programs—and are trained in naloxone administration

As of September 2025, there were 3724 people confirmed to be experiencing unsheltered homelessness (1841 of them live in the subway) and known by DHS teams AND known in the city’s “by-name list” of street homeless individuals. (Just for the record, the city had more than 80,000 people in regular shelters as of March 2026.)

Back when I checked on this in 2020, the number of emergency ‘safe haven’ and ‘stabilization’ beds dedicated to serving the street homeless was up to 1,800, though there were more coming. As we know, we have one next to Peck Slip School and on in Fidi. But you can do the math.