Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears on WABC’s “Eyewitness News”

February 22, 2023

Bill Ritter: An Eyewitness News exclusive, Mayor Adams riding the subway with outreach workers trying to get homeless people off trains and into shelters. It's one of the mayor's top priorities. Eyewitness News reporter NJ Burkett, the only reporter invited to join him.

NJ Burkett: For the sleeping passengers on the E train, the World Trade Center Stop is the end of the line where they are awakened and forced to leave. Outreach workers will offer them shelter and mental health services. Some will go.

Are you going to go to a shelter?

Homeless Individual: Yeah.

Burkett: Others will get off, only to get back on again.

Mayor Eric Adams: You want something to drink? Any coffee or tea?

(Crosstalk.)

Burkett: It doesn't always work?

Mayor Adams: No, no, but you come back again.

Burkett: Which is fine with Mayor Adams because he may lose a battle.

Mayor Adams: You've lived on the subway for a long time?

Burkett: But he's convinced he's winning the war.

Mayor Adams: This was a bold approach, and history's going to look back and say, "That team was unafraid to do what was right."

Burkett: We spent two hours with the mayor in the middle of the night, walking the platforms and riding the trains. So far this year, crime on the subways is down 20 percent amid increased police deployments and homeless outreach.

They work in the middle of the night, every night. Outreach workers are staffing 18 end of line stations throughout the New York City transit system. They are the centerpiece of Mayor Adams' subway safety plan.

Mayor Adams: We need to interact. We need to stop and say, "Hey, is everything okay? Are you all right?" We can't just say, "I'm just going to walk by them." And then when we go back home that night, we turn on the news and we realize, dammit, that's the person I saw that just pushed someone on the tracks.

Burkett: Thousands are being engaged each week, but according to the Coalition for the Homeless, in the first week of February, fewer than 4 percent actually checked into the shelter system.

Mayor Adams: Would you like your own place?

Burkett: The mayor prefers to focus on another statistic.

Mayor Adams: 1,000 people we took off this system. Close to 1,300 are still in care.

Burkett: Mayor Adams believes the public is on his side and there are no plans to scale back police patrols or homeless outreach efforts.

Mayor Adams: The others would rather throw up their hands, and I just refuse to do that.

Burkett: In Midtown Manhattan, NJ Burkett, Channel 7, Eyewitness News.

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