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     Current Issue Highlights Highlights Archive             Get to know your Business Agent today!  Find out how the union makes a difference on the job. |
Newsline: March 2002 DHS Special Officers Provide Safe Havens For the Homeless For years, people sleeping in boxes on the streets of New York was a common sight one could never forget -- and a municipal disgrace city officials have struggled to eradicate. To rid the streets of these unfortunates, and to alleviate the conditions that fostered them, the Department of Homeless Services was established in 1993 and made an independent mayoral agency in 1999. Since its creation, the agency has devised a homeless shelter system which has become a model for such services, both nationally and internationally. Officials of the DHS point out that reducing homelessness for families and individuals is not simply a matter of providing housing. "It is a matter of addressing the root causes of homelessness that can include mental illness, substance abuse, the disintegration of extended families, domestic violence, lack of education and skills, and joblessness," they insist. The annual budget for DHS, $497 million, provides housing for single adults through the Division of Adult Services, and for parents and children through the Division of Family Services. Part of this enormous program included creation of a force of trained special officers, members of Local 237, whose services have helped reverse the dangerous reputation of the city shelter system. The officers work at six sites: two in Manhattan, one in the Bronx, three in Brooklyn and one in rural Chester in upstate New York. The special officers are usually assigned to shelter entrances where clients must pass through metal detectors and are searched. All those who come to the DHS facilities seeking assistance must be sober and not carrying in weapons or contraband, such as drugs or drug paraphernalia. Sgt. Carlos Torres, a five-year veteran who supervises eight officers on the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift at the Bedford/Atlantic Men's Assessment Center at 1322 Bedford Ave. in Brooklyn, likes his job, but admits it is not always easy. "We have over 500 residents in this facility and we have to monitor access to the building," Torres said. "We also must make routine patrols of all five floors to make sure all the clients are safe and that there are no illegal activities being carried on." Officer Dolores Chambers has only been with DHS for 16 months, but in that short time she has worked at the Brooklyn Women's Shelter, the Auburn Family Shelter, and her current assignment at the Bedford/Atlantic Men's Assessment Center. "We x-ray packages that are brought in and we hand scan the people as they enter to make sure they are not bringing in anything that is objectionable," Chambers said. "Some people complain, but I simply ignore it. " The special officers, who are qualified peace officers with the power to arrest, also must check the identity of applicants to make certain there are no outstanding warrants for them from any court or legal agency. Providing shelter is not an easy job, since the agency houses an average of 6,539 families a day in 133 facilities. The families consist on an average of 21,719 individuals, including 9,450 adults and 12,269 children. Three quarters of the families are single parent households and the average age of the head of the household is 31. The Division of Adult Services houses an average of 7,510 single adults, men and women, in 45 facilities, many of which are contracted out and protected by private security. Evaluation Comes First The first step in the continuing effort to aid the homeless families is an evaluation of the need for temporary housing, which is done at the agency's Emergency Assistance Unit on 151st St. in the Bronx. All families with children applying for temporary housing at the EAU by 10 p.m. are provided with overnight sleeping accommodations. Ana Camareno, one of the 202 Local 237 members who serve as special officers for the department, said when she first started four years ago, there were a lot of problems. The first person the homeless applicant met was a special officer, who had to explain the procedure followed at the EAU and go through all the client's property. Clients and their children remain in temporary housing up to 10 days until their papers are examined and agency attorneys determine eligibility for permanent housing. Clients denied housing often tried to attack agency attorneys and the officers were needed to provide protection. Other applicants, she said, often sided with the person denied housing and the officers were needed to quell disturbances. Fights also broke out when case workers for the department, who suspected clients' children may have been abused or neglected, sought to have the children removed. Since that time, however, new procedures have been implemented, bi-lingual employees have been hired to eliminate many of the misunderstandings, additional nursing staff have been hired to provide added care and officers' training has been increased to reduce the need for physical force, Camareno said. So successful have the agency's improvements been that the number of health and safety violations in the shelters have been reduced from 1,101 in 1997 to a mere 15 in the summer of 2000. |
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 Officer Donna Robinson of the Emergency Assistance Unit monitoring the side entrance to the facility.  Betzaida Saldana of the Emergency Assistance Unit Police signing Officer Carlos Torres' day log.  Officers Dolores Chambers and David Uwakwe at the Bedford/Atlantic facility. |
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