A New York Metropolis councilman has declared a humanitarian disaster on Manhattan’s West Aspect, portray a grim image of streets lined with drug-abusing, mentally sick homeless folks in a letter addressed to Mayor Eric Adams.
Councilman Erik Bottcher, who represents Manhattan’s third district, pleaded with Adams for “immediate assistance in addressing the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the streets and subways of New York City” in a letter dated July 18, 2024.
Bottcher highlighted a number of areas, together with components of Occasions Sq., the Garment District and Washington State Park as being “particularly dire.”
This previous Monday, Sept. 12, 2022, at noon, a person slept on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, only one block from Occasions Sq., his face coated by an SEIU Native 1199 signal demanding “prime pay!” for employees. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox Information Digital)
“In these areas and others, significant numbers of individuals are engaging in a range of illegal and antisocial activities that are causing significant distress and fear among constituents, many of whom are seniors or families with young children,” he wrote.
The New York Publish dispatched reporters to the world following Bottcher’s letter. The reporters detailed a number of “unstable, strung-out homeless weirdos” when visiting over the previous two weeks. The outlet mentioned needles are recurrently seen on the road, highlighting “one dead-eyed junkie wandering with a needle sticking out of his hand along 36th Street near bustling Penn Station.” Seemingly mentally-ill folks lay conked out on benches and pavement, or shuffle by way of the streets, oftentimes barefoot, taunting vacationers and locals.
A safety guard working within the space, recognized solely as Fisher by the Publish, informed the reporters he sees folks utilizing medication “all day and all night” within the public courtyard on the Midtown Vacation Inn resort. Public urination and defecation are the norm, he mentioned.
“It’s crazy out here,” Fisher informed the Publish. “They even have sex out here on the benches. They pee and defecate here.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 30: A homeless man sits at Occasions Sq. on November 30, 2022 in New York Metropolis. New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams rolled out a plan to permit mentally sick homeless folks to be hospitalized towards their will. (Picture by Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress)
Workers on the Midtown Vacation Inn have reportedly begun turning on the sprinklers in hopes of retaining derelicts away, in accordance with the Publish.
HOMELESS CRISIS CONTINUES TO SPIKE ACROSS US AS NYC, LA EXPECTED TO BE HARDEST HIT
“But some homeless people are turning it into a shower experience — even using soap, as one hotel guest complained in an online review,” the outlet wrote.
Others come into the resort “cursing us out,” Rocky Caban, 45, the resort’s entrance desk supervisor, informed the Publish. “They try to hit us and everything. We got the guard outside to try to stop them from coming inside,” he mentioned.
“Everyday we gotta go through this. I see the same people every day. I see them get picked up and go in an ambulance and the next day they’re back outside,” Caban added.
A homeless man partially blocks a subway stairway in New York Metropolis on Sept. 10, 2022. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Photographs)
New York Metropolis-based PIX11 reported comparable findings when visiting the world final week.
“Within the first 10 minutes of being on West 30th Street, a PIX11 News crew spotted a man removed by EMS off the sidewalk, another exposing himself, and a third suffering from an apparent mental episode,” they wrote.
Bottcher referred to as it a “heartbreaking reality.”
“This… not only causes immense suffering for these individuals but also has an increasing negative impact on residents and business as we enter the middle of summer,” he wrote within the letter.
He mentioned the NYPD is “stretched thin” responding to calls within the space about “open narcotics sales and use, property destruction, physical and verbal intimidation, shoplifting and other illegal activity.”
He urged Adams to increase his controversial B-HEARD program to Manhattan’s West Aspect. This system, launched in 2021, seeks to attach folks affected by psychological well being points with professionals and is already operational in 31 precincts throughout New York Metropolis, PIX11 reported. This system sends paramedics, social employees and different unarmed first responders to reply sure 911 calls as an alternative of NYPD officers.
Mayor Eric Adams attends a press convention as a NYPD officer says he was the ringleader of a marketing campaign donation scheme to assist the New York Metropolis mayor. (AP Picture/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File)
Adams reportedly pledged to increase this system throughout town final yr, however the plan has been stalled, in accordance with the outlet.
“Manhattan’s West Side is in need of this program now,” Bottcher wrote.
He additionally urged Adam to help laws he launched that may require the New York Metropolis Division of Well being and Psychological Hygiene to place licensed social employees in NYPD precincts citywide.
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Our neighborhoods need assistance proper now,” he wrote. “The established order can’t be allowed to proceed.
The mayor’s workplace didn’t reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.
