Homeless Underground

TO THE EDITOR:

Re “Adams Says City Is Seeing Results in Its Effort to Get Help to the Mentally Ill” (news article, Nov. 30):

As someone who rides the subway frequently, I have a hard time aligning Mayor Eric Adams’s optimism about the progress the city is making in helping the homeless with the scenes that continue to play out in New York underground.

The same huddled figures try to find sleep on the wooden benches, their belongings stuffed into plastic garbage bags — all that’s left of their lives. And in the subway, my fellow passengers and I pray that the person who just entered the car shouting, “I don’t want to harm anyone — I just need some money!” will, in fact, do no harm.

And no one seems to notice that there is still scant visible police presence to monitor and protect the homeless as well as ourselves. For straphangers, there is just a numbing acceptance that we need to avert our eyes from the suffering as we continue to our destination.

CATHY BERNARD, NEW YORK