Ex-Social Services boss Gary Jenkins broke NYC policy by withholding shelter violation info amid migrant influx, DOI says

NEW YORK — Gary Jenkins, who served as Mayor Adams’ first Social Services commissioner, violated city policy by waiting a full day to disclose shelter violations that took place on his watch during the outset of the city’s migrant crisis, the Department of Investigation concluded in a report released Tuesday.

The report, the product of an 18-month investigation by DOI, revolves around what Jenkins did and did not do after his agency broke a city policy by letting several families with children sleep on floors and benches at the city’s main shelter intake center on July 18, 2022 amid overcrowding in the shelter system. The report also reveals the agency violated the same city policy in a similar fashion in previously unknown incidents before July 18, 2022.

Under the policy, any family who arrives at the Bronx intake center, known as PATH, by 10 p.m. must be given shelter beds by 4 a.m. the following morning, a requirement known internally at the Department of Social Services as the “10-to-4 Rule.” On July 18, 2022, the Department of Social Services flouted that rule by failing to find shelter for four families with kids by the 4 a.m. deadline, forcing them to sleep at the intake center.

The Department of Investigation, which launched its probe after Jenkins’ former spokeswoman alleged in summer 2022 he had tried to cover up those violations, stated in its report that the commissioner broke a “longstanding” city policy by waiting 24 hours after becoming aware of the transgressions to report them to the Legal Aid Society.

Legal Aid serves as the city’s court-appointed shelter system watchdog, and is supposed to be rapidly alerted to any “significant issues” in it, DOI’s report states.

“For this reason, DOI found that the delay in notification represented a departure from DHS’s longstanding practice to promptly notify Legal Aid,” the 36-page report states about Jenkins.

Beyond the violations that took place on July 18, 2022, DOI’s investigators found the Department of Social Services broke the “10-to-4 Rule” in previously unreported instances on June 29 and July 3 of that year. In those instances, at least five families were forced to sleep at the intake center, with two of them spending two consecutive nights there in violation of the ordinance.

Along with the July 18, 2022 violations and a subsequent July 19, 2022 transgression later disclosed, the DOI’s report says it thereby now knows of 11 families who had to sleep at the intake center in the summer 2022 as waves of migrant arrivals put immense pressure on the shelter system.

Since then, Adams has suspended the “10-to-4 Rule” on the banner that it’s impossible to comply with amid the ongoing migrant influx.

Still, Legal Aid, in a statement with the Coalition for the Homeless, called on the City Council to “immediately” hold an oversight hearing on the DOI findings and develop legislation to ensure “that PATH is processing families in a timely fashion and placing them in appropriate shelter.”

“This investigation reveals a disturbing cover-up by the city to hide the number of right to shelter violations it amassed in the summer of 2022,” the groups said. “We are extremely troubled by the city’s actions.”

In addition to not alerting Legal Aid, Jenkins — who resigned in February 2023 to take a job at former City Hall chief of staff Frank Carone’s consulting firm — got dinged in the DOI report for not being forthcoming about the violations in communications with his supervisor, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom.

Even though Joslyn Carter, one of his top deputies, told Jenkins around 8 a.m. on July 18, 2022 that the “10-to-4 Rules” had been broken and that it amounted to a “legal violation,” the commissioner did not convey the gravity of the situation to Williams-Isom, DOI reported.

Instead, Jenkins and his chief of staff, Karen St. Hilaire, who remains at the agency, “denied that families were ‘sleeping at PATH’ upon receiving an inquiry the following day (Tuesday, July 19) from the Deputy Mayor’s staff,” according to DOI’s report, which cites emails and other communications obtained by investigators.

“DOI’s investigation found that, because Jenkins did not provide sufficient context to the Deputy Mayor and her staff regarding the July 18 Violations, and at a minimum appeared to minimize, if not misrepresent, the circumstances at PATH, the Deputy Mayor and her staff (and others at City Hall whom the Deputy Mayor otherwise may have notified) lacked a full understanding of the violations and their implications,” the report states.

DOI’s report says Williams-Isom conveyed in interviews with investigators that Jenkins’ lack of transparency rubbed her the wrong way.

“Williams-Isom informed DOI that in retrospect, she was frustrated that Jenkins did not provide additional context with respect to the events at PATH before Wednesday, July 20, when the City found itself ill-prepared to respond to public allegations concerning families’ experiences at PATH and the associated legal implications,” the document states.

Jenkins did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday, and neither did the Department of Social Services.

Adams spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak sought to distance the mayor from DOI’s findings about Jenkins and argued the watchdog agency’s report illustrates how difficult it has been for the city to accommodate the more than 168,000 migrants who have arrived since spring 2022.

“The Department of Investigation agreed with precisely what we have been saying all along — there was never any wrongdoing by Mayor Adams nor anyone at City Hall as we began to experience this influx almost two years ago,” Mamelak said. “The Department of Investigation also recognizes just how difficult the outset of this crisis was, completely overwhelmingly our entire system.”

The DOI’s report does not include any recommendation for Jenkins to face legal repercussions.

However, the document spells out a list of recommendations for how DOI believes the Department of Social Services can avoid breaking city policy going forward, including by automating reporting on 10-to-4 Rule violations and conducting regular audits to make sure disclosures are done correctly.

Jenkins’ former spokeswoman, Julia Savel, whose complaint sparked the DOI’s probe, alleged she was fired in August 2022 for blowing the whistle on the ex-commissioner’s alleged coverup.

DOI’s report says it “was unable to reach a conclusion” on whether Savel’s termination was an act of retribution.

Separate from its findings about Jenkins, DOI’s report says it discovered that between June 2017 and mid-2022, Carter, the senior Department of Social Services official, “artificially lowered” the agency’s monthly eligibility rate, a data-point it uses to forecast shelter system censuses, capacity planning and budgeting.

The report says Carter’s manipulation of that data predates Adams’ administration and played out during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure.

While Carter told investigators she “acted at the direction of” Steve Banks, de Blasio’s longtime Social Services commissioner, in fibbing with the data, DOI stated in its report it could not corroborate that allegation.