It was an offer they could refuse.
Cops and social workers faced the monumental task this week of convincing unhinged vagrants living in Penn and Herald Square stations to trust them — and accept their offer of help.
Only one did — at least during the two hours that The Post tagged along Wednesday night from 8:30 p.m. to about 10:30 p.m.
Nine members of Mayor Adams’ Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness (PATH) team — six cops, two social workers and a nurse — approached 12 vagrants with the chance to sleep in a warm bed. The program began in August.
“Do you want to go to a shelter? Do you need help?” team members asked one elderly man lying atop two grungy cushions on the floor at East 32nd Street and Sixth Avenue.
He said he was already receiving medical help, quickly gathered his belongings and shuffled away.
“I was trying to see if he would go to the hospital,” nurse Richard Perkins said, noting the man had an obvious hernia. “We try to help him every night but he doesn’t want help.”
Transit Bureau Police Officer Ronny Del Rosario, 25, has gotten to know “Stu” and also frequently tries to help him.
“We always worry about him,” said Rosario, who’s been on the job for two years. “Sleeping on the floor every day isn’t safe.”
A 26-year-old transgendered man known as Justin – who had one bare foot – initially accepted the ride to a shelter and waited outside Penn Station in the rain with the team for 20 minutes – but then suddenly changed his mind and scurried off through puddles along Seventh Avenue.
“He said he was overwhelmed,” said James Goodwin, a community coordinator at the Department of Homeless Services, looking dejected. “We continue to try because these are our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.”
NYPD Capt. Hanjie Lu, who led the police officers, followed Justin and got him to agree to go to what he called a “warming bus” parked nearby at Seventh Avenue.
“The next shift is at 3:30 a.m.,” said Lu. “If we see him then, we will try again.”
Only one man, who was slumped over on a subway platform bench agreed to be taken to a Brooklyn shelter, but it was one he was already assigned to, officials said.
“A lot of them, the first couple times we talk to them they’re going to refuse,” said Lu. “Eventually, they’ll accept the services, maybe not connecting them to a shelter but get them off the platform to get something to eat, to shower, get some clean clothing.”
The mayor’s office created PATH to combine the services of nurses, social workers and cops under one umbrella, officials said. The teams conduct outreach at stations in Manhattan from 8 p.m. to 12 p.m. seven days a week. They hope to expand the program citywide.
“We keep trying because these are our mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles,” said Goodwin. “So shouldn’t we help them?
“One of the most unfortunate things is that we can’t force them to take services,” he added.
Officers can force a person to go to an emergency room with a 72-hour hold under state law after a nurse evaluates them. The protocol is known as a “9.58,” for the section of the state’s mental hygiene law that allows a nurse to remove a person who’s a danger to themself or others.
“Last week, a person had active lice,” Goodwin noted, explaining that a 9.58 was called and the man was taken to a hospital. “We could not let that person back on the train.”
He also recalled a homeless man who was forced to go to an ER because he was shooting drugs into an open wound.
Dark corridors and corners at stations allow for the illicit behavior, Goodwin said.
One hallway in Herald Square’s station was littered with discarded needles, The Post observed.
PATH teams have had contact with vagrants more than 13,500 times and provided services — everything from getting them beds, meals, clothes or even identification — nearly 4,000 times, according to city officials.
Cops also issued 390 summonses and removed over 1,000 people from the system for various violations.
“It’s innovative programs like this that keep New Yorkers safe and ensure the lifeblood of our city, our subway system, is able to thrive,” said Mayor Adams, who successfully pushed the state to permit a wider use of involuntary commitments that passed in the state budget last week.
NYPD Sgt. Allan Rinvil, a 43-year-old with 18 years on the job, was at the station last Friday when the team found a man with dementia at Penn Station.
“We ended up getting him care and into shelter,” recalled Rinvil, who said he signed up for the team because he wanted to help. “But that was just one good night. We have many good nights.”
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