New York City Mayor eric adams has proposed cutting the city's homelessness budget by 20%. He also talked about purchasing a fleet of surveillance drones to surveil new yorkers. The plan entails deploying additional andy p d officers to enforce a zero tolerance policy toward people sheltering on subway platforms or trains, in asing enforcement of violations like sleeping inside a subway car. Some of these officers will be part of 30 joint response teams composed of personnel from the department of health,. As the new york times reported, the teams will include mento health professionals with the power to order involuntary hospitalizations for people who they deem a danger to themselves or others.
In this News Brief, we examine the convoluted, vague rhetorical labor involved in making purging unhoused populations with cops seem humane and anodyne.