Daily News: Housing, Not Sweeps Saves Lives In Bitter Cold

As we mourn the deaths of New Yorkers during this extreme cold, some continue to argue that encampment sweeps would have prevented these tragedies. VOA-GNY’s President and CEO Jeffrey Ginsburg points out in a new op-ed published in The Daily News that they wouldn’t have.

Encampment sweeps are enforcement actions which disperses vulnerable New Yorkers while dismantling tents and discarding sleeping bags and blankets. Sweeps do not solve homelessness, Ginsburg says. The city’s own 2025 data shows that 97% of people encountered during encampent sweeps did not accept a shelter bed for a single night and not a single person was placed in permanent housing.

“People are not refusing help; they are refusing a system they feel can’t meet their basic needs,” Ginsburg writes.

But when people are offered a direct entry to permanent housing, many accept help.

Through VOA-GNY’s Street to Home program, more than 150 people have moved directly from the streets into permanent housing. Nearly all 67 current residents remained housed for at least one year, and 80% for two years or more.

As dangerously low temperatures continue, what protexts people is trust-building outreach, better shelter options, and direct pathways to permanent housing that end homelessness, not sweeping people out of sight.