Advocates sue MTA to reverse rules targeting homeless
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An empty subway car. Photo by Absolutewade via Wikimedia Commons
By David Brand
A homeless man repeatedly kicked out of New York City subway stations is suing the MTA over rules that he and advocates say deliberately target the homeless.
Barry Simon, 54, and a group of advocates filed the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court Friday, charging the MTA and its leadership with codifying rules that discriminate against the homeless by restricting the size of wheeled carts allowed in stations and forcing people to leave stations after an hour. The MTA also ejects people from stations after trains go out of service — a common occurrence since the transit agency suspended overnight ridership in April 2020.
Since then, Simon has been kicked out of stations “dozens” of times, despite his swollen feet and his disability status, the lawsuit states.
“As a result of his health conditions and housing status, he sometimes spends more than 1 hour in a station while he rests,” the complaint continues. “On several occasions he was threatened with arrest if he did not leave immediately.”
The new rules were implemented on an emergency basis in April 2020, before the MTA voted to formalize them in September 2020, spurring condemnation among advocates for the homeless.
“Criminalizing poor people or blocking their access to public facilities is plainly discriminatory, and does nothing to actually reduce the number of people who are homeless and need access to affordable public transportation” said Marcus Moore, a board member at the Picture the Homeless, a co-plaintiff along with the Safety Net Project.
Kicking people out of stations does nothing to actually address the crisis of homelessness, Simon said. Instead, it merely forces people experiencing homelessness into risky situations or inclement weather.
“Homelessness is not a problem, it is a responsibility, and the MTA shares in this responsibility.” Simon said. “When we stop seeing, or confusing, a responsibility for a problem, we will better be able to get it right.”
In a statement, an MTA spokesperson Abbey Collins said the agency is “reviewing the lawsuit that we first learned of in the press.”
“We will vigorously defend the regulations in court that were put in place to protect the health and safety of customers and employees in the midst of a global pandemic — period,” Collins added.
New York City Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg, another named defendant, addressed the issue in an interview on FOX5 Friday morning.
“In terms of the subway system, we're moving essential workers all the time and so we cannot be the shelter of last resort,” Feinberg said.
She said she has “begged” to improve the shelter system and increase access to affordable housing.
Homeless New Yorkers have long sought refuge in the subways as relatively safe and climate-controlled environments amid, particularly during the city’s historic homelessness crisis.
The decision to end overnight service was widely viewed as a strategy for preventing homeless people from staying in cars and stations. At the time, Coalition for the Homeless Policy Director Giselle Routhier said people sleep in subway cars because they lack safe alternatives due to city and state policy failures.
“Punitively closing the subways and sending in more police will only make things worse,” Routhier said. “What is actually needed are safe, private spaces where maintaining social distancing is possible.”
