The NYPD is set to retrain all Department of Homeless Services security guards, and the agency is planning to restore an anti-domestic violence program as part of the de Blasio administration's ongoing overhaul of the city's homeless shelters. Security has already been beefed up at hotel shelters and shelters for the mentally ill, following several high-profile murders at shelters, including the fatal stabbing of a former teacher by his mentally ill roommate in East Harlem in January, and the fatal stabbing of a mother and two of her children in a Staten Island motel shelter in February. Steven Banks, interim DHS overseer and commissioner of the Human Resources Administration, which manages social services payments, outlined the further proposed changes at a City Council welfare committee hearing on Tuesday.

Leading up to the hearing, the Daily News and NY1 published a series of stories outlining in grim detail the violence endemic in shelters, and police and security's often dysfunctional responses to it. Asked by NY1 if he thinks the shelters are safe, Banks said, "I think it's clear there is more we can do, and we are going to be doing more in the coming days."

The NYPD's retraining will be mandatory for all so-called peace officers working for DHS, as well as private security guards working for private shelter operators. The police department is also supposed to come up with a comprehensive security plan for the shelter system. The News/NY1 reported that the city logged 1,687 violent incidents last year, up from 753 in the overlapping fiscal year, but said that the spike is from improved record-keeping and expanded definitions of violence to include child abuse and neglect.

There was plenty of criminal mayhem, to be sure. From the News:

The 2015 incidents also include three cases of arson, six bomb threats and two handguns found in shelters that supposedly had functioning metal detectors. Two residents even showed off their guns to staff, records show.

Clients were caught with tasers and stun guns. Someone shot out a window. The son of a shelter resident was shot in the entryway.

At a shelter run by the non-profit BEDCO in the Bronx, one resident confronted another with a cell phone video he took from a security monitor showing her entering his room. She claimed she just took a cigarette; he took out a gun with a silencer and shot her in the leg.

Still, as Banks explained at the hearing, 60 percent of all violence in shelters is domestic violence, as the Staten Island triple homicide is said to have been, meaning it's not necessarily easily solved by posting guards at the door. To address this, Banks plans to add staff to NoVA, a domestic violence screening program at the PATH homeless shelter intake facility in the Bronx, bring back an in-shelter domestic violence intervention program he said ended under Michael Bloomberg's administration in 2010, and start building shelters with beds set aside for 700 domestic violence victims.

"That’s almost as many beds as we added during the entire prior administration," he said.

The concept of giving the NYPD greater control over shelter security has its critics.

"This is a horrible idea," said Al Williams, a member of the advocacy group Picture the Homeless, in a statement. "Living in shelter, this wouldn’t make me feel any safer. All this will do is deter people from entering shelter."

Indeed, it is common practice for the NYPD to use shelter rolls to find people with outstanding warrants, some of them for crimes as minor as unpaid public drinking tickets, and arrest them during early-morning raids. A Daily News story on the subject recounts a woman with no outstanding warrants at a Bronx cluster-site shelter twice having her apartment door kicked down by cops.

Banks told the News he's looking for ways to change this way of doing things without letting violent people run amok.

"We want people to come in, but we want people to come in and be safe," he said. "It's not a black-and-white situation, and we’re going to implement a policy that addresses shades of gray."

The widespread violence, and misplaced police priorities, have had disturbing results. The News again:

Last August, in the lobby of the Kingston Family Residence in East New York, Brooklyn, a porter allegedly grabbed a young child’s private parts in front of the parent and a security guard.

The guard called his supervisor, who called the NYPD via 911 at 8:14 p.m. The shelter report states "Operator 1337 took the 911 call but NYPD never arrived. . . . The porter was fired immediately by supervision and he exited the facility and did not return."

Yesterday marked the end of a three-month review of the shelter system overseen by Banks. He emphasized to the Council that the record homeless population and the disrepair and dysfunction in the shelter system "did not happen overnight." Further announcements about changes to the system are expected soon.