Chinatown killings focus spotlight on New York's homeless

From 2015 to this year, the Department of Homeless Services provided more than $27 million to house homeless adult families in these premises, according to The Wall Street Journal.

But after a series of incidents involving residents-including stabbings, prostitution, gun sales and a murder-it will cease operating by the end of the year, the department said.

Homeless people living on New York's streets are a common sight. They lie strewn against storefronts on sidewalks in the luxury shopping area of Fifth Avenue and in Times Square, a popular tourist attraction. Some curl up in corners displaying handwritten signs highlighting their plight and shake empty paper coffee cups at passersby for spare change.

Then there are those who stay out of sight, finding shelter in abandoned buildings, under bridges and in subway tunnels, living with rats.

For many of the homeless, the subway system is the safest place to sleep, with trains and stations providing shelter that the streets do not.

The number of homeless on the subway has increased from 1,771 last year to 2,178, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is hiring 500 transit police officers to patrol subways and stations.