In Harlem River Park in Manhattan, homeless men can be seen sleeping on benches around the basketball courts and sprawled out on a soccer field by day, then hunkering under an overpass at night.
In Brooklyn, dog owners in Fort Greene Park have had ugly confrontations with homeless people after their dogs woke them up in the early morning when they are allowed off-leash. And in the Bronx, there are so many homeless people in one small park, Devanney Triangle, that the community board and parks department are discussing the removal of all benches.
After a decade in which the number of homeless people on New York City’s streets had fallen by almost 25 percent, this year has seen an uptick in their number: On a single day in January, the population of the so-called street homeless was 3,357, representing an increase of 6 percent from the year before.
Betsy-Ann, an outreach worker, speaking with a homeless woman in Penn Station in January.As Homeless Shelter Population Rises, Advocates Push Mayor on PoliciesMARCH 11, 2014
A result has been a growing number of homeless encampments in the city’s parks, traffic squares and plazas. The attendant behavior — like public urination, sleeping on benches and violating the blanket 1 a.m. parks curfew — has led to tensions with neighboring communities.
Over all, the city’s homeless population is at a record high, with 57,676 people living in shelters as of early November, in addition to the growing numbers on the streets. In the past month, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office has convened an interagency task force to address the issue. As part of that effort, the city has identified 25 sites where the street homeless are congregating in large numbers. The sites include parks, private buildings, vacant lots and bridges, which have become priorities for the outreach teams who fan out across the city’s five boroughs daily to engage people living on the streets.
10 comments:
What a great response - to remove the benches.
This city must really address the economic inequality found here and try to fix the problem.
This is the City of Hopelessness!
There are no jobs, the ones that exist are minimum wage, and the bulk of the apartments are only affordable for the 1%ers.
Even if these people were to find jobs, they'd never be able to get an apartment after a background and credit check.
They're totally fucked!
No one is homeless by choice - it's horrible!
Perhaps if we got rid of illegals this city would have a lot more jobs and available apartments!
I heard a report on the radio a couple of weeks ago that the homeless rate wears down in most states except N.Y. That "Rite to Shelter" thing is working out real good. Of course the Mayor and City Council ordering the Police and Corrections to ignore the illegals when they get picked up for committing another crime has not helped either. We now have an endless supply of minimum wage (or below) workers to fill the service jobs that NYC seems to love. The problem is you cannot live in NY on these wages and everyone in this slave labor class will have to be subsidized if they are going to eat and have a roof over their heads. The City's answer, institutionalize these people in homeless warehouses thruout the city (just not in the neighborhoods where the 1% live). This also has the added benefit of pissing away millions of tax dollars to the politically connected hacks that run the profitable "non for profits".
If we got rid of illegals, it would open up a ton of cheap illegal basement apartments.
These are the hard-core violence-prone criminals and non-cooperating mentally ill that can't or won't live among the other homeless and follow the rules.
They want a life without anyone telling them to do anything, and pretty much that's how they wound up homeless and hopeless.
They don't want my sympathy and they don't get it.
Anon #3 said "They want a life without anyone telling them to do anything" Don't we all? If they are mentality I'll shouldn't they be in a hospital?
we need to be able to perform 'Mercy killings' and put them down like the feral animals they behave like.
That's going to be Forest Park soon enough after the Cooper Avenue shelter opens up. Forget what you've heard at the CB5 meetings and the move to sue the city. At the very, very best, the most that would do is force another "inspection" which will get stamped for approval just like the first one. I along with many other CB5 members have been working hard to get this shelter removed, but outside the meetings we're all making plans to leave. It's just not worth it anymore. I want my children and grandchildren to live and grow in a clean neighborhood, speaking English and within their own culture. That was possible in Glendale a few decades ago, but not anymore, so we're leaving.
No need to fear-- Duhblazio is here. I'm sure he and his lefty buddies and his high paid wife and her high paid aide and Al Sharpton will fix it all up. It will be a regular Homeless Workers Paradise! That's why you all voted for him,, right? I'm sure it's not back to the bad old days.
good idea about the mental hospitals. yes they do need care. will they accept it? probably not. Yes, the issue of illegal immigrants snatching up jobs and apartments is very real. Only not to our politicians for some strange reason. notice how the politicians love illegal immigrants? how about they take their jobs and see how they like it?
back to the mental hospital issue- didn't they shut them down and dump all the mentally ill in the streets in the 1970's? Now they have 'assisted living' where the facility takes your social security gives you five cigarettes a day, $20 a month in spending money and all the bad drugs to keep you stupid and drooling. That why you have to pick up cans to come up w/ the money to buy your crack and Bud Lite.
I have a great idea! Instead of homeless encampments let's call them "Obamavilles". remember Hoovervilles?
Seriously folks, these are dangerous people, be very careful. They are not normal, are probably armed with some kind of concealed weapon, knife, piece of metal pipe, etc. The black males are the most violent towards women.
Many mentally homeless were released from hospitals were released thanks to the work of the ACLU and the forward looking judges.
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