Like millions of New Yorkers, Antoinette Wilson and Ciarah Richmond spend time on the subway system. One day this month, they were on a platform at 168th street in Washington Heights, where the 1 and A lines connect at one of the system’s warmest stations.
That makes it a likely spot to meet people experiencing homelessness, an issue that appears to many to be observably worsening across the city.
Wilson and Richmond are members of SOS, an outreach programme connected to The Bridge, a charitable organisation founded in 1954 by former long-term residents of a psychiatric hospital as a self-help collective offering support to adults who, like themselves, had struggled with serious mental illness.
One recent morning, Wilson and Richmond happened upon G and Lily, a couple who are frequently on the platform. Lily says she
