New York City mayor announces plans to clear homeless camps
NEW YORK – In a recent interview, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to remove homeless people from the makeshift shelters they’ve created on city streets.
In the interview with The New York Times, Adams did not give many details about the initiative, including where the homeless people will be sent.
“We’re going to rid the encampments off our street and we’re going to place people in healthy living conditions with wraparound services,” Adams told The New York Times. He told the newspaper he planned to begin the initiative within two weeks.
City officials told CNN they are focusing on more than 150 encampments that the city has identified to clean up. The city posted notices on Thursday, and followed up on Friday with a 24-hour notice to clear out, CNN reported. However, the city cannot force people to go to shelters.
“We can’t stop an individual from sleeping on the street based on law, and we’re not going to violate that law,” Adams told the Times. “But you can’t build a miniature house made out of cardboard on the streets. That’s inhumane.”
In January 2021, New York City officials estimated there were about 1,100 people living in parks and on the streets, The Associated Press reported. Most of the city’s population of roughly 50,000 homeless stay in shelters.
“Once again, Mayor Adams is demonstrating his lack of understanding of unsheltered homeless New Yorkers,” Jacquelyn Simone, policy director for Coalition for the Homeless, told CNN. “His administration has no plan to provide safe, single rooms where they can stay inside, and is relying instead on the tired and cruel old tactic of chasing those without shelter out of Manhattan.”
