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The Urban Outreach Center was founded in 1990 as the Homeless Outreach and Advocacy（支援運動） Program.
In 2014, we became the Urban Outreach Center, recognizing that the breadth（広がり） of vulnerability（脆弱性） extends beyond homelessness alone, when, between 2014 and 2018, 50% of New Yorkers experienced poverty（貧困）.
Since opening our doors to provide social services to the most vulnerable populations of New York City, we now directly serve over 65,000 people each year and reach countless more, representing the full demographic（階層の） and cultural diversity of guests from all 5 boroughs and New Jersey.
Those individuals living on the street face tremendous barriers to coming indoors—many have fallen through every social safety net and may have experienced trauma or suffer from mental health or substance use challenges, making them DHS' most service-resistant population. It can take months of persistent and compassionate（思いやりのある） engagement, involving hundreds of contacts, to successfully encourage street homeless individuals to accept City services and transition indoors.
With no one-size-fits-all approach to ending homelessness, the by-name list enables the Joint Command Center outreach teams to more effectively engage each of these individuals on a case by case, person by person basis, directly and repeatedly, where they are, to evaluate the immediate and root causes contributing to their homelessness, continually offer a helping hand, develop the unique combination of services that will enable them to transition off the streets, and build the trust and relationships that will ultimately encourage these individuals to accept services.
S.H.O.W.—which stands for（～の略語） Street Health Outreach & Wellness—is a Street Medicine program that brings medical care, behavioral health resources, harm reduction, and material goods to New Yorkers who are unsheltered or living on the street. S.H.O.W Van services include:
•Basic evaluation of symptoms or health concerns, and treatment including wound care
•Screening, brief intervention（治療）, and referral （紹介） to treatment for substance use disorders, including connection to medication-assisted treatment and additional support
Mamdani launches new office to support NYC street vendors
マンダニ市長、ニューヨーク市の路上販売業者を支援する新しい対策室を開設
By Aaron Ginsburg
March 27, 2026
Credit: Christoph Birken on Unsplash
A longtime advocate（擁護者） for New York City’s street vendors（販売業者） will now represent the small businesses at City Hall. Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday officially launched the Office of Street Vendor Services and appointed Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, co-director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, as its first executive director（事務局長）. As part of the Department of Small Business Services, the new office will conduct outreach to the city’s roughly 23,000 street vendors and educate them on local laws and the permitting process. Legislation（法律） reforming street vending that passed the City Council last year mandated（法律により命じられる） the creation of the new office.
Kaufman-Gutierrez has spent seven years advocating on behalf of（～に代わって） street vendors, conducting outreach to understand their concerns with the city’s policies while keeping them informed about an often complex network of local vending laws, according to Gothamist.
Most recently, she served as co-director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, an advocacy group. She frequently visited vending hot spots, handing out fliers（チラシ） and using tools like measuring tapes to ensure vendors’ stands met size requirements and were positioned at the required distance from driveways and crosswalks to avoid fines（罰金） and tickets.
"Street vendors have long fought for both recognition and support from city government, and I’m honored to join SBS and the Administration in centering the needs of our city’s smallest businesses at Office of Street Vendor Services," Kaufman-Gutierrez said.
Kaufman-Gutierrez’s new role comes at a time when the city’s street vending system is undergoing（経験する） significant change. According to the New York Times, while the city has more than 20,000 vendors, there are only 6,880 permits and 853 general vendor licenses, figures that have barely（ほとんど～ない） changed since 1979.
One of the bills makes an additional 22,000 supervisory（監督の） licenses available annually from 2026 through 2031 and creates 10,500 new general vending licenses in 2027.
The legislation also builds on a similar policy passed in July that decriminalized（処罰の対象から外す） most street vending violations（違反） in NYC, removing misdemeanor（軽罪） penalties for general and food vendors and reducing them to civil offenses（違反）. Under Adams, officers issued more than 9,300 tickets to vendors in 2024, more than double the total in 2023, as 6sqft previously reported.
Despite the law, The City reported that some street vendors are still receiving criminal summonses（召喚状） for violations, suggesting the NYPD has not fully trained officers on the new policy.
According to the Street Vendor Project, seven summonses were issued to five vendors in Manhattan and Brooklyn for violations including failing to display a license or food prices and operating too close to a bus stop, curb（歩道の縁石）, or hydrant（消火栓）—all of which should be treated as civil offenses under the new law.
In a statement to The City, an NYPD spokesperson said the department is "continuing to train officers on the change in the law," but noted that the new policy "does not entirely prohibit（禁止する） the issuance（発行） of criminal court summonses for unlicensed general vending,” adding that repeat offenders could still face criminal charges（告訴）.
With Kaufman-Gutierrez’s appointment, Mamdani said he hopes to “fundamentally（根本的に） transform” the relationship between street vendors and the city, helping their work “thrive（繁栄する）” instead of making it harder.
"Our street vendors are not a problem to solve—they are a community to support. They feed us, employ us, and give our streets life at every hour," Mamdani said. "Many New Yorkers’ "fondest（一番大切な） memories are of grabbing late-night food at their local taco truck or halal cart. But City Hall has too often made their work harder instead of helping it thrive. That changes now."
"With this office and with Carina’s leadership, we will fundamentally transform the relationship that street vendors have with the city," he added. "By streamlining（合理化する） bureaucracy（官僚制度） and working closely with street vendors themselves, we can lower costs for vendors and their customers alike."
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