Exclusive | On hobo patrol with the NYPD: We cant force them off subways into shelters

It was an offer they could refuse.Cops and social workers faced the monumental task this week of convincing unhinged vagrants living in Penn and Herald Square stations to trust them — and accept their offer of help.Only one did — at least during the two hours that The Post tagged along Wednesday night from 8:30 p.m.

to about 10:30 p.m.Nine members of Mayor Adams’ Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness (PATH) team — six cops, two social workers and a nurse — approached 12 vagrants with the chance to sleep in a warm bed.The program began in August.

“Do you want to go to a shelter? Do you need help?” team members asked one elderly man lying atop two grungy cushions on the floor at East 32nd Street and Sixth Avenue.He said he was already receiving medical help, quickly gathered his belongings and shuffled away.“I was trying to see if he would go to the hospital,” nurse Richard Perkins said, noting the man had an obvious hernia.

“We try to help him every night but he doesn’t want help.”Transit Bureau Police Officer Ronny Del Rosario, 25, has gotten to know “Stu” and also frequently tries to help him.“We always worry about him,” said Rosario, who’s been on the job for two years.“Sleeping on the floor every day isn’t safe.”A 26-year-old transgendered man known as Justin – who had one bare foot – initially accepted the ride to a shelter and waited outside Penn Station in the rain with the team for 20 minutes – but then suddenly changed his mind and scurried off through puddles along Seventh Avenue.“He said he was overwhelmed,” said James Goodwin, a community coordinator at the Department of Homeless Services, looking dejected.

“We continue to try because these are our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.”NYPD Capt.Hanjie Lu, who led the police officers, followed Justin and got him to agree to go to what he called a “warming bus” parked nearby at Seventh Avenue.“The next shift is at 3:30 a.m.,” ...