Amid a public debate over the growing number of homeless people in the transit system, the state comptroller says a non-profit group contracted to help those individuals isn't doing its job.

The MTA has a contract with the Bowery Residents’ Committee to do homeless outreach in places such as Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central. But according to an audit from Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, outreach workers spent more time in the office than interacting with the homeless and trying to move them to shelters. DiNapoli’s auditors also found that the nonprofit's workers ignored homeless people who knocked on the doors of their office in Penn Station. They also determined that the BRC presented incomplete and inaccurate data to the MTA which the agency couldn’t properly verify.

“Straphangers and commuters can see firsthand that homelessness is a growing problem in the transit system, but the MTA is not doing enough to oversee its own outreach program,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “The MTA is not getting what it paid for and riders and the homeless are suffering for it.”

BRC hasn't responded to a request for comment.

In response to the audit, the MTA wrote that it has re-organized its oversight of the homeless outreach program and that it is in compliance with most of the recommendations.