NEW YORK — New York will use the combined resources and reach of thousands of city employees to begin to identify and help the homeless community.
18,000 city employees across five agencies — including FDNY, DSNY, DOB — are being trained on how to use the 311 app for service requests related to individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
The requests will be routed to the City’s new Joint Command Center (JCC) announced earlier this year, and managed by the Department of Homeless Services and NYPD.
The JCC will analyze trends, triage requests, and prioritize and deploy multi-agency responses as appropriate. The city is also in the process of hiring an additional 180 outreach workers. This will bring the number of outreach workers to more than 550.
Generally speaking, the city has tripled the dollars and personnel involved in outreach since the beginning of the de Blasio administration.
About 4,200 city workers have already been trained on 311. About 15,000 more will soon be trained, including many firefighters and paramedics.
