New York City officials are planning to remove makeshift shelters set up by homeless people on the streets, mirroring similar efforts in o...
New York City officials are planning to remove makeshift shelters set up by homeless people on the streets, mirroring similar efforts in other liberal metropolises that had previously tolerated the encampments.
Mayor Eric Adams disclosed the initiative in an interview with The New York Times on Friday.
It comes a month after he announced a push to remove homeless people from the city's sprawling subway system in response to assaults and other aggressive behavior.
A homeless encampment at the First Ave. station on the L line identified by subway crews last month. Hundreds of homeless people have been camping out in subway tunnels and stations
A homeless person sleeps under a blanket while seated on a New York sidewalk
The MTA described 'encampments' as 'lying down in a sleeping bag or stretch out,' as the person can be seen doing in Fulton Street station in Manhattan last month
Eric Adams is planning to remove makeshift shelters set up by homeless people on the streets, mirroring similar efforts in other liberal metropolises that had previously tolerated encampments
'We're going to rid the encampments off our street and we're going to place people in healthy living conditions with wraparound services,' he told the Times.
'I'm telling my city agencies to do an analysis block by block, district by district, identify where the encampments are, then execute a plan to give services to the people who are in the encampments, then to dismantle those encampments.'
Adams did not say where people living in the encampments would go, and acknowledged officials cannot force anyone to go to a homeless shelter.
Currently, around 48,000 people each night, including 15,000 children, sleep in city shelters.
He expected the effort to begin within the next two weeks.
'We can't stop an individual from sleeping on the street based on law, and we're not going to violate that law,' he said. 'But you can't build a miniature house made out of cardboard on the streets. That's inhumane.'
Many of the homeless find sanctuary in the subway stations and trains in the winter months
A series of homeless encampments are set up under the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway. at Lorimer and Metropolitan Ave in Williamsburg Brooklyn. Pictured here in May 2201
A homeless encampment is set up on the corner of Broadway and Mrytle Ave in Bushwick Brooklyn in May 2021
Reginald Holmes, who is homeless, stands next to a makeshift tent along West 39th Street
A homeless encampment can be seen along West 38th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue
Last month, hundreds of homeless people were found camping out in New York City's subway tunnels and stations.
Transit workers and outreach employees found almost 30 'homeless encampments' in the tunnels and another 89 camps in stations.
Encampment can be defined as 'lying down in a sleeping bag or stretch out,' officials said. All the encampments were removed among discovery.
'We never leave an encampment in place. As soon as we identify an encampment, those people are immediately removed,' MTA spokesperson Tim Minton told the New York Post.
The MTA's Track Trespass Task Force - which was formed in December - surveyed 472 stations across more than 650 miles for 12 hours between February 2 and 3, finding 350 people living there - not an uncommon sight for New Yorkers as the cold weather persists.
Adams' plan to clear the homeless from the subway and the streets, which he deemed essential to New York City's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, also includes changes that are supposed to connect more homeless people, many of whom have mental illness, substance abuse problems or both, to mental health services and permanent housing.
In its most recent estimate in January 2021, the city said about 1,100 people were living in parks and on the streets – a number seen by many advocates as an undercount.
Most of the roughly 50,000 homeless people in the city stay in shelters.
People who are homeless and their advocates have said removing street encampments only results in people moving from one spot to another.
An increasing number of cities across the country including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC, have been removing encampments and taking other steps to address homelessness that would have been unheard of years ago.
A homeless person sleeps under a blanket outside in Midtown Manhattan
A homeless person cleans and takes down his tent as NYPD officers, Park Police and authorities clear a homeless encampment at Tompkins Square Park
A woman helps authorities clean and clear a homeless encampment at Tompkins Square Park, East Village, Manhattan, New York in November
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