Reimagining the curb for people displaced by rising median rents

 

NY Post

Their housing situation is a stretch.

Homeless people are beating pricey rents in Queens’ hottest neighborhood by living out of their cars and RVs — including two men living the high life out of a beat-up limousine.

In the shadow of luxury high-rise apartments, at least four vehicles are being used as homes along an isolated five-block stretch of Queens Plaza South in Long Island City, The Post found this week.

Among them was a grey Lincoln Town Car Royale with busted-in tinted windows, paint stripped off its roof, many dents, and no license plates.

Inside the limo, skull masks sit atop tarps and sheets, while outside its broken windows are decorated with sheets of duct tape, cardboard, and a blue blanket sporting an eagle and flowers.

For roughly a year, two men have made the limo their home and are regularly spotted sweeping along the area, under the Queensboro Bridge — as if it was their front porch, according to homebound neighbors.

The duo has also been hooking into the city’s power grid for electricity by tapping into a nearby lamppost, residents claim.

“The guys in the limo [are] homeless and you feel terrible,” said one 48-year-old man who works in the neighborhood. “But at the same time, [the limo] is taking up three spots. There’s got to be a better way for [them] to be taken care of.”