MAYOR EYES PUTTING COP IN EACH SHELTER

Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday he'll put a cop in every city shelter, if necessary, to keep homeless New Yorkers safe.

Bloomberg's comment came as the city braced for its first winter storm of this season, and also followed his vow last week to improve shelters - even as he promised to aggressively move the homeless off the streets.

The new mayor tackled the homelessness issue during a busy day in which he attended the inaugurations of Man-hattan Borough President Virginia Fields and Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro and a post-inauguration reception for Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion.
"I want to make sure that there are beds for anybody that needs them and that those beds are safe," Bloomberg said yesterday in a radio interview on WABC-AM. "The police commissioner is checking into that, and if we have to we'll post a police officer at each shelter."
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly is conducting a safety study of city shelters. Sources said last week that he plans to institute a crime-tracking system for the shelters modeled on the NYPD's Compstat program, which helped drive down crime on city streets.
"Commissioner Kelly has ordered his borough commanders to embark on a survey of security at all city-run shel-ters to determine what can be done to make those shelters safer," said NYPD spokesman Michael O'Looney. "That may include better alarms, better locks, and it may include placing police officers in some shelters."
Many homeless people refuse to stay in city shelters, saying they are unsafe and dirty.
"This is like one of the worst neighborhoods with a roof on top," said a 25-year-old man named Maldi, who stays at the Bellevue Hospital shelter. "It's like being on the streets with a roof." More than one aspect Mary Brosnahan Sulli-van, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said Bloomberg has good intentions, but more needs to be done.
"Physical safety is one aspect of this problem," she said. "Posting a single officer at the doorway of the Bedford At-lantic armory [in Brooklyn] is welcome but not enough. It's filthy, dangerous and chaotic. What a single beat cop can do at the front door is limited."
The city's Department of Homeless Services said it has increased its security budget by 50% in the past three years. Private security officers and better-trained peace officers are used at shelters.
At the Sony Plaza Public Arcade on Madison Ave., homeless people seeking shelter from the winter weather yes-terday had mixed reactions to the possibility of police at shelters.
George Mellos, 60, said he has been homeless since 1989 and swore off shelters after being robbed at the Fort Washington shelter eight years ago.
"I don't know if the cops will do anything, I don't know if they won't do anything," he said. "But that's the reason we don't go to the shelters. They have security guards but they don't do anything."


Courtesy of the NY Daily News
January 7, 2002