Homeless Encampments: The Newest Problem NYC Faces in a COVID Decimated City

Jared Evan

Despite the efforts of the NYPD, homeless street encampments are becoming a major issue in the COVID ravaged once bustling big apple.

Over the weekend a fire burned down a Chelsea homeless encampment, leaving one injured and another encampment in front of The New School is raising eyebrows.

It’s unclear what caused the blaze, which broke out before 7 a.m. on the side of 120 West 30th Street, where a custodian on his way to work in the building saw a man leap out of the flaming encampment, the NY Post reported.

Cops and firefighters later told Ronnie the homeless victim was burned on his arms and legs. One person was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the FDNY said.

“Everyone was cool with them. The cops would talk to them, bring them food. At first it was just two mattresses, but at Phase 3 it started getting bigger. It became its own entity. It became like a house.”

“We called 311, sanitation,” he said. “We heard that they cleaned up the one in the village, so we thought maybe they would clean up this one. We never went in there ourselves”, a local custodian told the Post.

Meanwhile, the NY Post reported: A homeless man is living amid an apartment’s worth of furniture arranged outside The New School’s University Center building — where outraged neighbors say the one thing, he really needs is a bathroom.

The homeless man essentially set up an entire outdoor apartment from discarded furniture from the local wealthy residents. The local outlet, reported, that this particular homeless person lived in the subways, until the changes the MTA made because of the pandemic forced him out.

This is another reflection of failed policies, half-baked ideas and endless amounts of money tossed at the homeless epidemic in “woke” NYC.  The expensive ThriveNY program, run by the mayor’s wife, has shown next to zero tangible results and to this day, people are asking where did the money go?

TVJ reported on the infamous East Village sidewalk encampment:

On Sunday July 26, not 24-hours after city workers took down the makeshift camp site, it was back.  The homeless community had speedily rebuilt their station.  “We had a blissful 12 hours of peace,” said local resident Vanessa Valdes, in an email to The Post on Sunday. “They are back and rebuilding structures again. I saw five people, including the sex worker interviewed in (a Post) article. What can be done?”  As reported by the NY Post , Valdes showed pictures of the street block which showed a tarp, cot and lop- sided shelving unit with two people sleeping underneath.  The encampment is tucked under scaffolding, which was put up in 2015 when an apartment building was devastated by a gas explosion.

The homeless issues is one of a myriad of issues the “greatest city in the world” faces.  Corona has devastated tourism, NYC is suffering an unemployment rate of 20%, Broadway theaters sealed shut, skyrocketing crime, shuttered stores, over 500,000 moving away from the city, endless idiotic protests,  and a mayor with no confidence among the cities remaining residents.