NYC announces plan to remove homeless encampments from streets

According to statements made by Mayor Eric Adams in an interview with The New York Times on Friday, New York City officials are looking to eliminate the makeshift shelters that have been set up by homeless people on the city’s streets.

The initiative follows similar efforts in other metropolises that had previously gone along with the encampments. 

Although Adams did not provide many details, the announcement came a month after he released information regarding a push to remove homeless people from the city’s subway system in response to reports of assaults and other aggressive behavior.

“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 said to the Times. 

The mayor continued, “I’m telling my city agencies to do an analysis block by block, district by district, identify where the encampments are, then execute a plan to give services to the people who are in the encampments, then to dismantle those encampments.”

He did not give details on where those living in the encampments would go, but he did acknowledge that officials do not have the ability to force anyone to go to a homeless shelter. The effort is expected to begin in the next two weeks.

“We can’t stop an individual from sleeping on the street based on law, and we’re not going to violate the law,” Adams added. “But you can’t build a miniature house made out of cardboard on the streets. That’s inhumane.”

In the most up-to-date estimate from January 2021, the city noted that about 1,100 people were living in parks as well as on the streets. Many advocates, however, believe that is an undercount.