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NYC ‘gateway’ and tourist destination overrun by mentally ill, drug
abusers: ‘Humanitarian crisis’

<https://nypost.com/2024/08/04/us-news/nyc-gateway-and-tourist-destination-overrun-by-mentally-ill-drugged-out-weirdos-humanitarian-crisis/>

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NYC ‘gateway’ and tourist destination overrun by mentally ill, drug
abusers: ‘Humanitarian crisis’
By Social Links forHaley Brown and Social Links forMatt Troutman
Published Aug. 4, 2024, 12:13 p.m. ET

881 Comments
Unstable, strung-out homeless weirdos have swarmed large parts of
Manhattan’s West Side, littering streets with needles and menacing
locals and tourists alike — and there’s no help in sight.

The invasion of homeless, mentally ill and drug-abusing people is a
full-blown “humanitarian crisis” greeting millions of tourists and
office workers who arrive in Midtown and its highly trafficked
surrounding neighborhoods, wrote Councilman Eric Bottcher in a recent
letter to the mayor asking for aid.

“Our neighborhoods need help right now,” he wrote. “The status quo
cannot be allowed to continue.”'

'A man injects drugs into his hand near 8th avenue in midtown Manhattan.
9 A dead-eyed junkie injected drugs into his hand in front of The Post
near Eighth Avenue.
Stephen Yang for the New York Post
West Side wackadoos — including one dead-eyed junkie wandering with a
needle sticking out of his hand along 36th Street near bustling Penn
Station — were out in force as The Post visited the neighborhoods over
the past two weeks.

A bedraggled security guard, who only gave Fisher as his name, said he
sees doped-up derelicts do drugs “all day and all night” in the public
courtyard at the Midtown Holiday Inn hotel along Eighth Avenue’s
infamous “strip of despair.”

“It’s crazy out here,” the battle-weary Midtown security guard, 50,
said.'

'Homeless, mentally ill and drug-abusing people are a full-blown
“humanitarian crisis” on the West Side below Central Park, said one pol.
Stephen Yang for the New York Post
“They even have sex out here on the benches. They pee and defecate
here.”

Entire swaths of the West Side, including near Washington Square Park,
the West Fourth Street subway station in the West Village and the
Garment District, are “particularly dire,” Bottcher wrote.

Stretched-thin NYPD precincts in the area are buried in endless calls
about open drug sales and use, destroyed property, menacing acts of
physical and verbal intimidation, shoplifting and more, according to
Bottcher. And the cops can’t arrest their way out of the crisis, he
said.'

'Open drug use is a common sight in parts of Midtown.
Stephen Yang for the New York Post
“We have people who have been arrested 50 or 100 times without any
meaningful intervention,” Bottcher, who represents District 3 covering
the area, told The Post.

“At what point does anyone do anything to interrupt that cycle?”

Staff at the Midtown Holiday Inn, where The Post watched a custodian
outside clean up at least two spent needles, have resorted to turning on
sprinklers in hopes of washing the unruly vagrants away.'

'But some homeless people are turning it into a shower experience — even
using soap, as one hotel guest complained in an online review.

“We turn the sprinklers on to move them and they come inside cursing us
out,” said Rocky Caban, 45, the hotel’s front desk supervisor. “They try
to hit us and everything. We got the guard outside to try to stop them
from coming inside.”

Caban pointed to a man nodding off on the benches: “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.”'

'Two strung-out vagrants lay on the sidewalk outside Housing Works
Community Healthcare, a 37th Street “harm reduction” center that offers
a needle exchange and crystal methamphetamine treatment, when The Post
visited Wednesday.

A few blocks over, two Port Authority cops chased a screaming man out of
Carlo’s Bakery.

A security guard who has worked for two years in a 36th Street building
told The Post that he sees people doing and selling drugs on the block
“all the time.”'

'He noted a methadone clinic is nearby, but many homeless people he
talks with during his workdays tell him that they can’t afford their
medication.

“They say, ‘I’m going to self medicate and buy heroin,'” he said.

“They’d rather live on the street than a homeless shelter because people
get robbed. People get stabbed. They’re more safe on the street.”'

'The onslaught isn’t just in Midtown.

More than a dozen apparently mentally unwell people slept strewn out on
benches or shuffled barefoot through Washington Square Park, some
murmuring to themselves and others mumbling for money last week.

Craig James, 55, a Brooklynite who sells his art in the park, said
begging derelicts intentionally target families, and often spit at them
when they don’t pay up. Other scamming scalawags bump into unsuspecting
parkgoers with trays of food, spilling them in hopes the sympathetic or
frightened marks will pay up to replace it, he said.'

'You can tell because the food is all dry and it’s full of cigarette
butts but most people don’t want to be bothered,” he said. “They know
the tourists don’t want to be hassled.”

An apparently homeless man slept near the West Fourth Street subway stop
outside a 7-Eleven, where clerk Rana Jamil said a ceaseless barrage of
emotionally disturbed people leave him scared to work every day.

The shoplifting and violence has prompted the West Village store to put
locks on refrigerators and forced several employees to quit, including
one who only lasted a week, said Jamil, who predicted a likely will
closure within “a couple of months.'

'“Nobody can run a business here,” he said.

Bottcher, in his letter to Adams, pressed the mayor to support a bill
requiring the city’s health department to place licensed social workers
in NYPD precincts.

He also pointed out that B-HEARD — a pilot program in which mental
health workers help respond to 911 calls — only runs in 31 police
precincts, none of which are on the West Side.'

'“Manhattan’s West Side is in need of this program now,” he wrote.

The squalor outside the Holiday Inn has scared off guests, many of whom
have left scorching online reviews calling the hotel an “absolute
garbage dump” and complaining about “sketchy” people doing drug deals
outside.

see also

Midtown Manhattan’s ‘8th Ave. Corridor’ plagued by junkies lying at
tourists’ feet, fighting in the streets
Nicola Krebs, 31, a tourist visiting from New Zealand with her family,
said she’s unlikely to stay at the hotel again.

“I love New York City,” Krebs told The Post, before adding, “It’s a bit
off-putting with so many homeless people.

“They should actually give them help.”

Crime has actually been falling across most of the six police precincts
covering Bottcher’s West Side district, according to NYPD crime
statistics.

The exception happens to be the one serving the most visible area, at
least in the world’s eyes: Midtown North, which covers the north edge of
Times Square, the Theater District and Hell’s Kitchen.

Major felonies there rose 71% through July 22 and July 28, compared to
the same week last year, according to NYPD data.

Those crimes are up 10% so far this year in the precinct, compared to
the same span in 2023, the data shows.

A man sleeps on a discarded couch on 30th street and Broadway in midtown
Manhattan.
9 Social services are desperately needed in the West Side’s crisis, said
Councilman Eric Bottcher.
Stephen Yang for the New York Post
But many of the complaints outlined by West Side locals, businesses and
tourists to The Post fall under quality of life issues not easily
reflected in crime statistics. They also could lead to calls to cops
about people who are homeless or are experiencing mental health
problems.

The Post requested Friday the number of police contacts with emotionally
disturbed people in the six West Side precincts Bottcher covers going
back to 2022, only to be told by an NYPD spokesperson that they couldn’t
gather the information by Sunday morning.'

'Bottcher said the situation is causing suffering for New Yorkers with
serious mental illness, drug problems and who are living rough on the
streets, in addition to the impact on locals and businesses.

He said the problem is in full view in Midtown.

“We are the gateway to New York City for millions of people every year,”
he said. “We are the district that millions of people go to work in
every day.” '

On 2024-08-04, John Smyth <smythlejon2@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Welcome to NYC. Destroyed by democrats and liberal ideology.
> Leave while you can.
>
> NYC ‘gateway’ and tourist destination overrun by mentally ill, drug
> abusers: ‘Humanitarian crisis’
>
><https://nypost.com/2024/08/04/us-news/nyc-gateway-and-tourist-destination-overrun-by-mentally-ill-drugged-out-weirdos-humanitarian-crisis/>
>
> '
> Search
> Email
> New York Post
>
> Log In
> Search
> Type to Search
> Search
> Metro
> NYC ‘gateway’ and tourist destination overrun by mentally ill, drug
> abusers: ‘Humanitarian crisis’
> By Social Links forHaley Brown and Social Links forMatt Troutman
> Published Aug. 4, 2024, 12:13 p.m. ET
>
> 881 Comments
> Unstable, strung-out homeless weirdos have swarmed large parts of
> Manhattan’s West Side, littering streets with needles and menacing
> locals and tourists alike — and there’s no help in sight.
>
> The invasion of homeless, mentally ill and drug-abusing people is a
> full-blown “humanitarian crisis” greeting millions of tourists and
> office workers who arrive in Midtown and its highly trafficked
> surrounding neighborhoods, wrote Councilman Eric Bottcher in a recent
> letter to the mayor asking for aid.
>
> “Our neighborhoods need help right now,” he wrote. “The status quo
> cannot be allowed to continue.”'
>
> 'A man injects drugs into his hand near 8th avenue in midtown Manhattan.
> 9
> A dead-eyed junkie injected drugs into his hand in front of The Post
> near Eighth Avenue.
> Stephen Yang for the New York Post
> West Side wackadoos — including one dead-eyed junkie wandering with a
> needle sticking out of his hand along 36th Street near bustling Penn
> Station — were out in force as The Post visited the neighborhoods over
> the past two weeks.
>
> A bedraggled security guard, who only gave Fisher as his name, said he
> sees doped-up derelicts do drugs “all day and all night” in the public
> courtyard at the Midtown Holiday Inn hotel along Eighth Avenue’s
> infamous “strip of despair.”
>
> “It’s crazy out here,” the battle-weary Midtown security guard, 50,
> said.'
>
> 'Homeless, mentally ill and drug-abusing people are a full-blown
> “humanitarian crisis” on the West Side below Central Park, said one pol.
> Stephen Yang for the New York Post
> “They even have sex out here on the benches. They pee and defecate
> here.”
>
> Entire swaths of the West Side, including near Washington Square Park,
> the West Fourth Street subway station in the West Village and the
> Garment District, are “particularly dire,” Bottcher wrote.
>
> Stretched-thin NYPD precincts in the area are buried in endless calls
> about open drug sales and use, destroyed property, menacing acts of
> physical and verbal intimidation, shoplifting and more, according to
> Bottcher. And the cops can’t arrest their way out of the crisis, he
> said.'
>
> 'Open drug use is a common sight in parts of Midtown.
> Stephen Yang for the New York Post
> “We have people who have been arrested 50 or 100 times without any
> meaningful intervention,” Bottcher, who represents District 3 covering
> the area, told The Post.
>
> “At what point does anyone do anything to interrupt that cycle?”
>
> Staff at the Midtown Holiday Inn, where The Post watched a custodian
> outside clean up at least two spent needles, have resorted to turning on
> sprinklers in hopes of washing the unruly vagrants away.'
>
> 'But some homeless people are turning it into a shower experience — even
> using soap, as one hotel guest complained in an online review.
>
> “We turn the sprinklers on to move them and they come inside cursing us
> out,” said Rocky Caban, 45, the hotel’s front desk supervisor. “They try
> to hit us and everything. We got the guard outside to try to stop them
> from coming inside.”
>
> Caban pointed to a man nodding off on the benches: “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.”'
>
> 'Two strung-out vagrants lay on the sidewalk outside Housing Works
> Community Healthcare, a 37th Street “harm reduction” center that offers
> a needle exchange and crystal methamphetamine treatment, when The Post
> visited Wednesday.
>
> A few blocks over, two Port Authority cops chased a screaming man out of
> Carlo’s Bakery.
>
> A security guard who has worked for two years in a 36th Street building
> told The Post that he sees people doing and selling drugs on the block
> “all the time.”'
>
> 'He noted a methadone clinic is nearby, but many homeless people he
> talks with during his workdays tell him that they can’t afford their
> medication.
>
> “They say, ‘I’m going to self medicate and buy heroin,'” he said.
>
> “They’d rather live on the street than a homeless shelter because people
> get robbed. People get stabbed. They’re more safe on the street.”'
>
> 'The onslaught isn’t just in Midtown.
>
> More than a dozen apparently mentally unwell people slept strewn out on
> benches or shuffled barefoot through Washington Square Park, some
> murmuring to themselves and others mumbling for money last week.
>
> Craig James, 55, a Brooklynite who sells his art in the park, said
> begging derelicts intentionally target families, and often spit at them
> when they don’t pay up. Other scamming scalawags bump into unsuspecting
> parkgoers with trays of food, spilling them in hopes the sympathetic or
> frightened marks will pay up to replace it, he said.'
>
> 'You can tell because the food is all dry and it’s full of cigarette
> butts but most people don’t want to be bothered,” he said. “They know
> the tourists don’t want to be hassled.”
>
> An apparently homeless man slept near the West Fourth Street subway stop
> outside a 7-Eleven, where clerk Rana Jamil said a ceaseless barrage of
> emotionally disturbed people leave him scared to work every day.
>
> The shoplifting and violence has prompted the West Village store to put
> locks on refrigerators and forced several employees to quit, including
> one who only lasted a week, said Jamil, who predicted a likely will
> closure within “a couple of months.'
>
> '“Nobody can run a business here,” he said.
>
> Bottcher, in his letter to Adams, pressed the mayor to support a bill
> requiring the city’s health department to place licensed social workers
> in NYPD precincts.
>
> He also pointed out that B-HEARD — a pilot program in which mental
> health workers help respond to 911 calls — only runs in 31 police
> precincts, none of which are on the West Side.'
>
> '“Manhattan’s West Side is in need of this program now,” he wrote.
>
> The squalor outside the Holiday Inn has scared off guests, many of whom
> have left scorching online reviews calling the hotel an “absolute
> garbage dump” and complaining about “sketchy” people doing drug deals
> outside.
>
> see also
>
> Midtown Manhattan’s ‘8th Ave. Corridor’ plagued by junkies lying at
> tourists’ feet, fighting in the streets
> Nicola Krebs, 31, a tourist visiting from New Zealand with her family,
> said she’s unlikely to stay at the hotel again.
>
> “I love New York City,” Krebs told The Post, before adding, “It’s a bit
> off-putting with so many homeless people.
>
> “They should actually give them help.”
>
> Crime has actually been falling across most of the six police precincts
> covering Bottcher’s West Side district, according to NYPD crime
> statistics.
>
> The exception happens to be the one serving the most visible area, at
> least in the world’s eyes: Midtown North, which covers the north edge of
> Times Square, the Theater District and Hell’s Kitchen.
>
> Major felonies there rose 71% through July 22 and July 28, compared to
> the same week last year, according to NYPD data.
>
> Those crimes are up 10% so far this year in the precinct, compared to
> the same span in 2023, the data shows.
>
> A man sleeps on a discarded couch on 30th street and Broadway in midtown
> Manhattan.
> 9
> Social services are desperately needed in the West Side’s crisis, said
> Councilman Eric Bottcher.
> Stephen Yang for the New York Post
> But many of the complaints outlined by West Side locals, businesses and
> tourists to The Post fall under quality of life issues not easily
> reflected in crime statistics. They also could lead to calls to cops
> about people who are homeless or are experiencing mental health
> problems.
>
> The Post requested Friday the number of police contacts with emotionally
> disturbed people in the six West Side precincts Bottcher covers going
> back to 2022, only to be told by an NYPD spokesperson that they couldn’t
> gather the information by Sunday morning.'
>
> 'Bottcher said the situation is causing suffering for New Yorkers with
> serious mental illness, drug problems and who are living rough on the
> streets, in addition to the impact on locals and businesses.
>
> He said the problem is in full view in Midtown.
>
> “We are the gateway to New York City for millions of people every year,”
> he said. “We are the district that millions of people go to work in
> every day.” '

On Sun, 4 Aug 2024 22:55:47 -0000 (UTC), pothead <pothead@snakebite.com> wrote:

>
>Unfortunately I need to visit NYC several times a month and it is all the above and even more. The
>stench is absolutely overwhelming. It's a combination of feces, urine, cigarette smoke and pot all
>mixed together.
>Having grown up in NYC I am very streetwise and have that 6th sense that kicks in when danger is
>around me.
>I've seen losers all over the place looking for tourist marks to attack. Purse snatching, pick
>pockets and just crazy looking people carrying weapons like bats and pieces of wood.
>I've had homeless try to surround my car at a stop light. Solution, step on brake, floor
>accelerator, smoke the tires and take off without stopping. Oh, and always keep car locked and
>windows up. Leave space between car in front of you so you have an escape route.
>
>NYC is no longer my NYC where I grew up and felt safe.
>It's become a third world nation that is not habitable by civilized people.
>Thank you liberals.

Note above where it's noted that total crime is down.

Poverty and homelessness are a national problem that isn't caused by liberals. Back in
the sixties and fifties when Democrats ran the country, that sort of thing was relatively
rare.

The longer we've gone with right wing rule, the worse the troubles at the bottom end of
the economic spectrum have gotten.

So keep voting Republican. It will only make it worse.

#nevertrump