{"id":155724,"date":"2026-03-06T22:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/155724\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T22:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:08:07","slug":"nyc-council-bill-aims-to-close-gaps-between-hospitals-and-shelters-after-deadly-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/155724\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Council bill aims to close gaps between hospitals and shelters after deadly winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nolberto Jimbo-Niola, 52, died outside in the bitter cold this winter and was found on a Queens park bench with discharge papers from a local hospital.<\/p>\n

His death was one of more than two dozen from hypothermia<\/a> so far this year in New York City, as residents faced a weekslong stretch of brutally cold temperatures. The fatalities led to calls from lawmakers and advocates to shore up the city\u2019s safety net when it comes to extreme weather risks<\/a>, especially for homeless and medically vulnerable people.<\/p>\n

They also spurred questions over whether Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration could have done more to prevent the deaths<\/a>.<\/p>\n

City Councilmember Shaun Abreu is proposing legislation requiring city officials and hospitals to boost protections and resources for those groups during weather emergencies, which are becoming more common due to climate change. <\/p>\n

Two bills he plans to introduce at a Council hearing on Monday seek to ensure patients are safely discharged from hospitals and to improve coordination between health care providers and the city\u2019s homeless services.<\/p>\n

Abreu, who represents parts of Manhattan, said the measures were driven in part by Jimbo-Niola\u2019s death in North Corona after he was released from Elmhurst Hospital two days earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a serious determination to get these bills passed as soon as possible,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cWe\u2019re sort of out of the woods on extreme cold, I believe, but extreme heat is on the way and the onus is on us to get something passed expeditiously.\u201d<\/p>\n

One bill<\/a> would direct the city Department of Homeless Services to provide materials for hospitals and patients on emergency resources, recommended discharge procedures and contact information for city agencies. It would also require the department to work with hospitals during the release process and connect homeless patients to warming centers, drop-in centers and shelters.<\/p>\n

The other bill<\/a> mandates that the agency work with hospitals to make certain supplies available upon a patient\u2019s release. Those include a thermal blanket, hand warmers and a winter hat during cold weather and a reusable water bottle, cooling wipes and a bandanna during hot weather. Abreu said the list of items could change as the bill moves through the Council.<\/p>\n

Some of the first bill\u2019s provisions already appear to be covered by city policy. The Department of Social Services reportedly sent a reminder letter<\/a> to local hospitals this season discouraging discharges during weather emergencies. There is also an existing referral process for homeless patients admitted to and discharged from hospitals.<\/p>\n

But David Giffen, executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for the Homeless, said the current guidance has significant gaps. During the cold stretch, he said he heard from doctors and staff in hospital emergency departments who were unaware of the guidance the homeless services agency had sent earlier in the season.<\/p>\n

Giffen said the doctors told him their emergency rooms were filling up with homeless people who had nowhere to go, and they were concerned hospital directors would start releasing these patients to make room for others.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI don’t know, practically speaking, what steps need to be taken. But, you know, once a year or every time there’s a Code Blue, simply sending an email to all of the [emergency departments] doesn’t really do the trick,\u201d Giffen said, referring to the city\u2019s protocol for increasing homeless outreach during cold weather.<\/p>\n

He also noted that while the Department of Homeless Services \u2014 which is part of the larger social services agency \u2014 sends its guidance to private hospitals, they\u2019re not required to follow it.<\/p>\n

\u201cInformation is always good, but what we really need to see is something with teeth to ensure that nobody who does not have a safe place to go leaves a hospital out onto the streets where they are clearly in danger of perishing from the cold,\u201d Giffen said.<\/p>\n

“[The Department of Social Services] is in support of the spirit of this bill, which is ensuring unsheltered neighbors are kept safe during Code Blue emergencies,\u201d said agency spokesperson Neha Sharma, but stopped short of endoring the bills themselves. \u201cDSS already works closely with hospitals to ensure collaboration, particularly during weather emergencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

NYC Health and Hospitals, which oversees the city\u2019s public hospitals, did not return requests for comment on Friday.<\/p>\n

The prolonged run of below-freezing temperatures this winter, one of the city\u2019s coldest in years, resulted in at least 29 hypothermia deaths since mid-January, according to authorities. Just more than half of those deaths occurred outdoors or in other public spaces.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers and city officials are still grappling with questions around whether the Mamdani administration did enough to help the most vulnerable during the extreme cold. During an oversight hearing last month Council Speaker Julie Menin said the deaths were preventable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese deaths are not inevitable,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are the result of gaps in outreach, shelter capacity, mental health services and follow-up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nolberto Jimbo-Niola, 52, died outside in the bitter cold this winter and was found on a Queens park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-155724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}