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New York mayor wants to break up homeless camps

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NEW YORK, April 7, 2022 (AFP) – It’s become a commonplace in New York City: Police dispersed a homeless camp on Manhattan’s sidewalk on Wednesday, but none of the displaced have agreed to move. city ​​shelters are considered very dangerous.

Amid the booing of anti-evacuation activists and an imposing police presence in the background, sanitation workers dispersed the blue tents and threw piles of clothing, blankets, and trash into a trash can.

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Police arrested several activists and a homeless man who refused to leave after hours of negotiations, during which the city government offered the occupants the opportunity to disperse the camp and protect their tents.

Such operations have multiplied since the new Democrat mayor Eric Adams vowed in March to clear the subway of the thousands of homeless who had sought refuge there and to dismantle the camps in public spaces with the promise of proper resettlement.

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It’s a policy that Adams justified by his argument that he wants to get the city back on track after the covid-19 pandemic, but which sectors of the left have condemned.

“At a time when social housing budgets are being cut, it is unacceptable to waste resources on such an obviously overkill operation,” said Democratic councilor Carlina Rivera.

– Bittersweet Consequences – 66-year-old African-American Kevin, who refused to give his last name, says he categorically refused one of the shelters in the city, under the scaffolding that protected the camp from rain. a victim of theft.

“I wouldn’t advise anyone to go to the bunker. It’s dangerous,” he assured.

“We want apartments, we want houses, not places in hostels,” says another homeless Cynthia.

Poverty can be seen in this spot in Manhattan called Alphabet City, especially in a nearby public park where people without resources come and go.

The homeless chose a spot opposite a Lutheran congregation that offered free meals.

“Since Covid, especially in the first few months, a lot of people have been living on the street and the queue (for food) has increased day by day. It’s always very long,” said the parish priest, Reverend William Kroeze. .

Adams admitted that the initial results of the operations were mixed, with only five homeless people out of the roughly 250 camps in their numbers agreeing to go to a shelter.

But the mayor advocated a long-term policy by getting “more than 300” homeless people to seek help in the subway where operations began.

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Alphabet Inc.

source: Noticias

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