Murders of homeless men raise questions about safety for those on the street

NEW YORK - The shocking murders of four homeless men in Chinatown is bringing concern over safety issues for New Yorkers living on the street.

“People who are on the streets are oftentimes the most vulnerable people who are homeless in our city,” said Giselle Routhier, Policy Director of the Coalition for the Homeless. “So we need solutions for all 61,000 people who are living in shelters every single night and the thousands more that are on the streets. We cannot continue to live thinking it’s okay for some people to not have homes.”

“I think if this was four college students who were out on a night on the town or a family of four was walking around, I think we’d feel a lot more outrage and we’d see a lot more anger,” said New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. “But we need to have the same amount of outrage and the same amount of anger. These are four human beings that were bludgeoned to death.” 

Despite the city’s spending on homelessness doubling in the last six years to a whopping $3.2B, the crisis seems to be escalating.

“It’s dangerous out there for people who are homeless and we must start committing to a real homeless policy that’s going to meet the needs of people who struggle in this town,” said New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer. “We need to build real affordable housing, we need to make sure that we keep people safe. The people who we may not see every day but they’re out there and we have to help them.”

FOX 5 NY reached out to the Department of Homeless Services and their spokesman said that their homeless outreach street action teams, called HOMESTAT, are monitoring the area where the men were killed closely, ready to provide assistance on the spot.