councilman homeless
© Anthony Delmundo/New York Daily News
A Queens politician cut short his self-imposed bout of homelessness after catching pneumonia.

Our Clare Trapasso follows up on her earlier report: City Councilman Ruben Wills had vowed to spend three days on the streets pumping gas for change, sleeping on subways and navigating the city's shelter system to understand what it's like to be homeless in New York City.

But Wills, who went to court last year for not paying his own rent, walked home Wednesday night after just two days as a bum.

"There are lot of holes in the system," said Wills (D-Jamaica), who went unrecognized in a camouflage jacket and baggy jeans. "There's this huge segment of the population that has less than what they need to survive."


He plans to go homeless again and enter the city's shelter system, he said, "as soon as I get a doctor's clearance."

Wills was diagnosed with pneumonia on Tuesday night at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. The councilman was riding the trains and went to the hospital without ID or an insurance card, and said he was pleasantly surprised by how "cordially" he was treated.

City Councilman Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica) ate at a soup kitchen in southeast Queens on Tuesday. Wills had attempted to spend three days living as a homeless man to better understand the experience. The next morning, Wills opened doors at a McDonalds and pumped gas to pay for a $25.99 bottle of antibiotics.

Wills said he will urge the city to once again give long-term rental subsidies to the homeless, or to place families in public housing.

More than 52,000 people - including 22,000 kids - sleep in the city's shelter system, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. City Department of Homeless Services officials did not immediately return calls for comment.

But Wills' experience is "what homeless New Yorkers go through every day," said Legal Aid Society Attorney-in-Chief Steven Banks.

"Being homeless makes existing medical problems worse," Banks said. "City agencies have to do more to prevent people from becoming homeless and get people on the streets and in shelters into actual homes."