Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

NYPD Plans to Retrain Homeless Shelter Workers Inside its Police Academy

By Trevor Kapp | March 15, 2016 2:57pm
 The NYPD will retrain homeless shelter workers on deescalation tactics in the coming months, Chief of Department James O'Neill said Tuesday.
The NYPD will retrain homeless shelter workers on deescalation tactics in the coming months, Chief of Department James O'Neill said Tuesday.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp

CITY HALL — The NYPD will likely use the Police Academy in College Point as its hub to retrain homeless shelter workers on how to deal with their increasingly-combative residents, NYPD Chief of Department James O'Neill said Tuesday.

“What we're focusing on is keeping the residents of the shelter system safe," O'Neill said. "We're sending an assessment (team) to see what the structure looks like and see what we need to do."

The training for peace officers will take place over three days in the coming months. Shelter managers will get five days of NYPD refresher courses, O’Neill said.

The announcement comes as the city completes a 90-day review of the shelters, which have been plagued by violence in recent months.

In January, a 62-year-old former special-education teacher had his throat slit by his schizophrenic roommate in a shelter on Lexington Avenue and 124th Street.

While O'Neill said the NYPD has stepped in at times to arrest residents with felony warrants, its role in regulating the facilities is now expected to increase.

"If we have to go on site, we'll go on site," he said. "Whatever we need to do to make (Department of Homeless Services) more effective, more efficient."

Steven Banks, the commissioner of the Human Resources Administration, said one of the challenges in overhauling the current system that combines DHS peace officers and contractors is how long it's been in place.

“We want to take a fresh look at a structure that has been built up over many years,” he said. “This NYPD role in sending an upper-management team is just one of the many pieces that will be so important moving forward.”