By: Casey MacIntire
Despite the constant homeless encampments popping up across the five boroughs, Mayor de Blasio, in a recent press conference said they are rare.
“I just want to say, once in a while we still see something that’s an encampment,” de Blasio said at a remote City Hall press briefing Monday.
“That means people trying to set up basically permanent lodging on the street, but it’s very, very rare in New York City right now because we made a decision years ago in this administration to stop what had happened for decades before and not allow those encampments,” he said.
“So sometimes you see what we call a hot spot which is people congregating, but not setting up, you know, a living place, in effect,” he insisted.
The NY Post reported: Pablo Restrepo, who owns the Hallmark Pharmacy near the makeshift Elmhurst shelter, was not surprised by the mayor’s blind spot.
“Of course, he would say encampments are rare. It doesn’t affect him. He’s not around it. He doesn’t see it. He’s not coming home to this every goddamn day!” Restrepo fumed.
He said there are 50 to 75 homeless people who sleep outside nightly on platforms and mattresses under a canopy.
Earlier in August TJV reported on a fire at a homeless encampment:
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. One person was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
These encampments first caught the media’s attention in late July when TJV reported:
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
The East Village sidewalk encampment was removed and shortly after rebuilt. Based on this alone, it is clear NYC has an issue at hand. These encampments seem to be expanding into Queens.
The NYC camps are still prominent, and recently a homeless man was stabbed and left to die in a pool of his own blood on West 38th Street, between 10th and 11th Ave.
