Welcome back to the Penn Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is

Stephen I. He's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He's been on the

podcast before. He researches homelessness, mental health issues, and other social problems, and does so in a very,

very informed way. This month, he published a Manhattan

Institute report on crime and mental illness in New York City. And he's recently written

several pieces for City Journal on what the city's new mayor, Eric Adams, can do to help

ameliorate the city's homelessness problem. So Steve, thanks very much for being

back on the show. Thanks for having me, Brian. Last week, Mayor Adams released a new subway safety

plan. It was designed or is designed to address homelessness in crime in the city's transit system, which has become a big problem.

Under the plan, the city will deploy teams of police and social workers on the subways.

They plan to increase social services outreach and reinstate a policy that will require all passengers to exit trains at the end of the

line. So it seems, at least on paper, to be a good start. Would you agree with that assessment?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, early days yet with the Adams administration. And these, you know,

homelessness, mental illness-related public disorder challenges have vexed mayors going back for decades

by this point. You know, sincere efforts were made under, for example, the Koch administration

to do something about this.

We can't say that they succeeded in a permanent way.

But I would say particularly in contrast to the former de Blasie administration,

you know, he really seems focused on problems such as serious mental illness in a way that seems encouraging to me personally.

So at the moment, I would say I'm hopeful.

Now, you know, during Adams' predecessors, Bill de Blasio's tenure as mayor,

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