Overview
- The city committed $25 million on Monday to expand its Code Blue emergency system, including a directive that street canvassers engage anyone they encounter rather than rely on preexisting contact lists.
- More than 300 additional canvassers will be deployed across the five boroughs to cover roughly 75% of known outdoor homeless locations and push indoor shelter options.
- The plan adds roughly 800 cold-weather beds, more than 600 single- and double-occupancy rooms, up to 55 mobile medical units staffed by nurses, four new warming centers and up to 20 warming buses with hospitals available as warming sites at the highest response level.
- Sanitation and other agencies have bought 120 snow blowers, upgraded over 650 plows, mapped bus stops and sidewalks into snow routes, added eight Staten Island plow routes, and stockpiled about 500 million pounds of salt to speed pedestrian clearing.
- Workforce incentives and readiness measures include an expanded Emergency Snow Shovelers program paying $30 an hour with 3,000+ registrants and more than 2,200 vehicles and thousands of trained staff ready to convert to snow roles, though some exact room and warming-site locations and timing remain unspecified.