Mayor de Blasio announced a $210 million program Tuesday to upgrade safety at the Housing Authority that includes a novel twist: cops assigned to conduct “wellness visits” with residents involved in accidents.
Police have also been instructed to make more home visits to victims of domestic violence to ensure they’re safe and help “facilitate access to services as needed.”
“We’re not out there just to arrest people and issue summonses,” said Carlos Gomez, chief of the NYPD’s housing unit. “We’re there to offer help [and] assistance, and we’ll see how you’re doing and if we could help you further.”
The 15 projects targeted for the initiative are: Queensbridge in Queens; Castle Hill, Butler and Patterson in The Bronx; Tompkins, Bushwick, Brownsville, Van Dyke, Boulevard, Red Hook and Ingersoll in Brooklyn; Polo Grounds, St. Nicholas and Wagner in Manhattan, and Stapleton on Staten Island.
Those projects account for nearly 20 percent of all violent crime across the 334 authority complexes. Officials said they will see an influx of 700 cops, to the boost the 2,000 already on patrol.
Most of the $210 million being added by the city is going toward physical repairs to improve safety, including removing scaffolding, replacing locks and fixing doors, plus adding more lighting and cameras.