Richard Rubel

To take only one example, Amtrak loses $11 million a year at Penn Station, just south of Times Square, because the homeless drive potential passengers away, according to Richard Rubel, community relations officer at Amtrak.And the repeated trips the homeless make to hospital emergency rooms for thoroughly avoidable medical crises also ring up a hefty public tab, as do their resultant disability benefits.

"To Reach the Homeless" proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the homeless are not on the street because they can't find housing: desperate to give away subsidized apartments, the BID found almost no takers.Clearly, most vagrants prefer the streets to the responsibilities of a housed existence.Some may simply refuse to play by society's rules, like many hoboes of old; for others, speculates the respite center's director, housing may represent a scary reencounter with whatever psychological demons drove them to the streets in the first place.

RICH RUBELStation SpecialistAmtrak