NEW YORK CITY, New York: Mayor Eric Adams has announced a plan to remove the homeless from the New York subway and bus systems.

He announced the plan this week, while standing next to New York Governor Kathy Hochul at the Fulton Street station in Lower Manhattan.

Adams’ plan is based upon sending teams of police, medical personnel and social workers to offer assistance to the homeless, including removing them from public transportation.

“You can’t put a Band-Aid on a cancerous sore. That is not how you solve the problem,” Adams said. “You must remove the cancer and start the healing process.”

Adams promised that his approach “is not about arresting people,” but “about arresting a problem.”

Adams said rules of conduct are to be strictly enforced on public transit, and vagrants will be ejected from subways.

“No more smoking, no more doing drugs, no more sleeping, no more doing barbeques on the subway system. No more just doing whatever you want,” Adams said. “No. Those days are over.”

Adams also said the city will seek to end the use of subways and stations as long-term shelters for the homeless.

“There’s one case where a woman has been living under a stairway in the system for months. This is not acceptable,” he said. “That is not dignity. That is disgusting. And that’s not who we are as a city.”

Helping the homeless has been a problem in New York for decades, particularly since so many refuse to accept help.

Also, many homeless people fear for their safety if they move into homeless shelters.

Hochul has announced that she is seeking $27.5 million in additional funding for psychiatric beds statewide, $12 million more for supportive housing beds, along with $10 billion to support hospitals and the state’s health care workforce.

Hochul also said state reimbursements to hospitals and other health care providers will be increased by 10 percent when addressing long-term mental health needs.

To move the homeless into shelters, Hochul said the state will enforce guidelines to ensure that when someone is a danger to themselves or others, which might require their being institutionalized and receiving treatment.

“We need to talk about what’s involved in the removal and involuntary commitment for the highest need individuals, who truly have demonstrated they’re not capable of taking care of themselves,” she said. “We need to issue regulations that’ll give those who witness this behavior, those who are in the subways, the law enforcement … the experts – give them more authority to take some steps to get people out of those circumstances and into a place so they could begin the healing. And this is long overdue.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Ann Marie Sullivan, the state’s mental health commissioner, said clearly stated standards for involuntary commitment would be issued to emergency rooms and hospitals. Based upon the regulations, doctors would decide whether someone requires hospitalization.

“We have commitment laws in New York State. They are good commitment laws,” she said. “It’s the way that you look at the laws, and I think you can interpret these laws with a little more room, and there’s case law to support that.”