Hidden in plain sight between a children’s playground and the stream of traffic into Brooklyn, a homeless encampment sits hard by the Manhattan Bridge.
Three
makeshift “bedrooms” allow residents to hunker down for the night under
an open sky, just a few feet from one another. There’s no sink or soap
to follow the city’s wash-your-hands admonition and no sign of hand
sanitizer. A pale blue surgical mask lies in the dirt.
A table in one of the bedrooms includes a paperback copy of “Birth of Tragedy,” by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
In
the time of coronavirus, this encampment lies outside the reach of the
frantic effort to contain an illness that had killed more than 770 New
York City residents as of Sunday afternoon. And as the virus spreads,
it’s touching the ranks of New Yorkers who live outdoors, bedding down
on sidewalks and subways.
A man camps out in Times Square on March 24, 2020.
Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Last
week, only one unsheltered person had tested positive for COVID-19, the
disease caused by coronavirus, according to city officials. By
Saturday, there were four — three of whom remain hospitalized.
As
for the rest of the estimated 3,200 New Yorkers living on the streets
and in subways, keeping tabs on where they are or on who is infected is
proving a steep challenge.
The
city has stopped tracking down close contacts of those who have
COVID-19 as the number of those infected skyrockets, so there is no
account of who these four unsheltered individuals had contact with in
the days before they tested positive.
Meanwhile, police are breaking up encampments around the boroughs, THE CITY has learned.
“This
population is finding it remarkably difficult to do the things they’re
being told to do,” said Josh Dean of HumanNYC, a group that presses to
house the unsheltered homeless. “The general guidance is to stay at home
and wash your hands and unsheltered homeless people can’t do that.”
7 comments:
Just shower and wash your hands inspite of nowhere to be able to do it at.
Just eat your cake bro.
A few generations back, plagues used to hit New York with numbing regularity. The people of that time, with the exception of a tiny minority, still lived in primitive conditions with ox carts and mud and filth as their world. Things changed in the 20th Century. That was erased and plagues became the things of history books.
So what did we do? Why we reinvented it, brought in the 3rd world where people still used oxcarts, and encouraged locals live rough on our streets in a perpetual "medieval world" and built a large group of American who depended on this garbage on their existence for income. Well because of this the pantry is bare on resources to fight the plague. But all have a fine appreciation on exotic things.
Then we got this garbage lifestyle of hopping around the world to enjoy exotic people and their cultures. Who needs Cape Cod when you have Cape Town? Yellowstone when you can swim in the Yellow River? Well, now you have it people "Medieval World". Have you learned anything?
"Have you learned anything?"
No not yet but we will see this November !
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics ?
I have seen people in my neighborhood who eat food and drinks right from trash cans and they pick up cigarette butts and smoke them.They live on the streets without a warm place and can't get clean and always worried about getting attacked or hassled by the cops. Many have mental and substance abuse problems and other ailments.How they can survive for years like this amazes me.
I live in a nice house,good food,washing everything and I know I'll get the virus before the guy living on the street.It's called Murphy's Law.
Mayor Muriel Bowser is threatening residents of Washington, DC, with 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they leave their homes during the coronavirus outbreak.
And what about the homeless ? Look a what Cities are suffering the most from COVID-19 and tell me if you see a pattern !
We are all locked up in our homes but druggies, wackos, derelicts and drunks have carte blanche to defecate and urinate wherever they want. We can thank COVID 19 the federal judiciary and the ACLU for the new New York.
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