Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism and questions from advocates for homeless New Yorkers after abruptly reversing his policy pledge to end homeless encampment sweeps.
City Hall officials said outreach workers with the Department of Homeless Services would begin notifying street homeless New Yorkers this week of plans to clear them out of public spaces. During a sweep, city sanitation workers often trash tents, makeshift encampments and other belongings if people refuse to pack up and go to a shelter or another location.
Mamdani had called the encampment sweeps done by his predecessors Eric Adams and Bill de Blasio a “failure” because they rarely led to people being placed in permanent housing. He billed the new plan as a kinder, gentler approach to addressing street homelessness, saying the city would conduct daily outreach in the seven days before police and sanitation workers arrived to disperse encampments or makeshift shelters.
But advocates for homeless New Yorkers say Mamdani’s plan is more of the same, and will displace people while moving only a fraction of them into shelters or permanent housing.
“It’s a huge step backwards,” said Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society. “It seems like what’s happening now is the administration is caving to political pressure to say they have to push people out with force rather than approaching them with resources that they need and will accept.”
Mamdani has faced pressure to resume sweeps from business leaders, elected officials and media outlets since he halted the policy days after taking office. Those calls intensified after at least 19 people died outdoors during a recent stretch of cold weather — though it was unclear how many of the people were living in encampments. At least five had permanent housing.
crosspost from https://hexbear.net/post/7702840
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You should be forced to live in a dog cage
You start to appreciate why liberals are universally hated by the Left
DPRK just handed out 60k keys to citizens for apartments they built over the last 3 years. Sweeps don’t give people homes, they just cause trauma. Guess who does the sweeps? NYPD. You can lose what little possessions you have in the process and it is a humiliating experience. After the sweep you still need a place to put your head that night.
ToFu HoUsEs
/s because
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I’m not disagreeing because I want them to live in cardboard boxes, but because I don’t believe homeless sweeps are ever done with the goal of finding a home for these people. Instead they are done to terrorize them and keep them on the run so that poverty is not clear and transparent for everyone to see, while doing absolutely nothing to actually house them.
I doubt there would be a need for those sweeps if there really was a viable alternative provided by the state.
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Unfortunately, to fully fix the homeless issue there will have to be involuntary commitments. Some people just don’t want help. They don’t want to take their meds because the side effects suck, or they don’t want to quit their addiction.
I met many of them volunteering at homeless shelters. There were regulars that would come for food, but refused any other help we could offer (typically because to stay there you couldn’t have drugs or alcohol).
The resources to help them get back on their meds or go to rehab for free existed and were offered every time.
I’m not saying that these people are the majority of homeless people, because I know most homeless people just need a helping hand to get back on their feet. And I’m not saying these people don’t deserve help. But these people seem to be frequently forgotten when the discussion comes up.
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