{"id":327523,"date":"2026-08-22T21:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T21:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/327523\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T21:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T21:04:07","slug":"fewer-homeless-new-yorkers-died-last-year-even-as-population-remained-at-record-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/327523\/","title":{"rendered":"Fewer homeless New Yorkers died last year even as population remained at record high"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 600 homeless New Yorkers died in the city in 2025 \u2014 a significant decline compared to the previous year<\/a>, even as the city\u2019s homeless population remained at record levels, city numbers show.<\/p>\n

The annual report<\/a> shows an 18% drop in deaths among homeless New Yorkers in the fiscal year that ended June 30, compared to the prior fiscal year. It\u2019s the first decrease in seven years, largely driven by the city\u2019s efforts to help keep drug users safe by referring them to counseling and safe-use locations and preventing overdoses, city officials said.<\/p>\n

It comes as the city\u2019s shelter population remains at record levels<\/a> and the Mamdani administration grapples with the highest rate of street homelessness in the last 10 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

City officials said every homeless shelter is equipped with fentanyl testing strips, naloxone kits and trained staff. And when people walk into shelter they receive information on how to seek help and the number for a 24-hour hotline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city saw overdose deaths amongst New York City’s homeless population declining faster than the citywide and national decline,\u201d said Neha Sharma, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Services.<\/p>\n

The report shows most people died in a hospital though some people died in shelter or outdoors. The main causes of death included drug-related issues, heart disease, cancer and accidents, the data shows.<\/p>\n

Homeless advocates said the deaths \u2014 more than half of which were deaths of homeless people not living in shelters \u2014 underscore the need to double down on convincing New Yorkers sleeping on the street to come inside and get the help they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we have alternatives for the street homeless population that they’re willing to engage in where right now they’re choosing not to? It’s very hard to deal with significant drug or alcohol challenges when people are completely unsheltered,\u201d said Dan Lehman, president and CEO of HELP USA<\/a>, a shelter and housing provider. He said street homeless New Yorkers made up 60% of drug-related deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s the biggest single thing that we should be thinking about: How do we target and engage if we’re really going to look to reduce deaths among people who are experiencing homelessness?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

City officials said they began including more unsheltered people in their reports in 2023 to paint a more accurate picture. The report, released earlier this year, now counts the deaths of individuals the city had not conducted outreach to, people who the city couldn\u2019t determine whether they had a place to live, those staying in a vacant apartment or staying with friends who didn\u2019t have a place of their own.<\/p>\n

Even with the drop in drug-related deaths year over year, drugs still remained the leading cause of death among homeless people, the report shows. The number of drug-related deaths dropped by more than a quarter last year, compared to fiscal year 2024, the report shows. In city shelters, overdose deaths dropped by 61% between 2022-25, city officials said. In New York City overall, drug related deaths dropped by 33%. Nationally, they dropped by 34%.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u200areally do believe that so many mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters’ lives have been saved\u201d by the city\u2019s approach to harm reduction, said Chinese Dobson, a harm reduction specialist with the Department of Social Services.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in a shelter is not easy, and using drugs is a way for people to cope with it. And sometimes when they don’t have enough money to do certain things, they may take risks that maybe they wouldn’t take if they did have housing or if they did have a better outlook or did have resources,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

City officials also help shelter residents find safe-use sites that allow drug use in a sterile, supervised environment to prevent overdoses and spread of disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the current crisis, every overdose death is preventable,\u201d said Jasmine Budnella, director of drug policy at VOCAL-NY, a grassroots group advocating for low-income New Yorkers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a matter of if we are putting resources into the right things to make sure that we both have housing, healthcare, that we have naloxone into the hands of everybody, that people have access to the things that they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Budnella said the report showed the neighborhoods where the most people died of drug-related causes, and where the city needs to expand its harm reduction services, such as East New York and Brownsville \u2014 the neighborhoods that saw among the highest number of deaths.<\/p>\n

More than 80% of the homeless people who died were men, and of those, many were between the ages of 45-64. Among unsheltered people who died, 13 died due to exposure to excessive cold.<\/p>\n

Nirah Johnson, \u200adirector of health and homeless service integration at the Department of Social Services, said the city wants to make sure everyone who walks through the shelter receives support, even if they\u2019re only there a short time, \u201cbecause we consider everyone to be at risk.\u201d\u200a<\/p>\n

She said the city is also building its programs to reduce the risk of alcohol use.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven things as simple as eating before you drink, drinking water throughout, not drinking in unsafe places, like we do see accidents related to alcohol use, falls, et cetera,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 600 homeless New Yorkers died in the city in 2025 \u2014 a significant decline compared to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-327523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327523","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=327523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}