Do something already!
Mayor Zohram Mamdani’s hands-off homeless policy is handcuffing New York’s Finest, who are being forced to sit back while a putrid shantytown continues to grow and grow on Manhattan’s West Side.
Mamdani’s new policy won’t let the NYPD clean out the lawless encampment until one week after city social workers and homeless advocates are sent in to sweet-talk vagrants who are shacking up along a 12-block stretch near the Intrepid Museum — and that only happened Tuesday despite weeks of complaints.
No city workers showed up until 3 p.m., according to locals — as experts say the site reminds them of the Big Apple’s “Bad Ol’ Days.”
“The mayor is too young to remember the eighties and early nineties and what a mess New York was,” former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton told The Post. “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. It all began with non-enforcement of quality-of-life offenses.
“Remember the squeegee men at every entrance to the city?” Bratton said. “Remember the rampant street prostitution and graffiti? Remember the 8,000 open air drug selling locations? Remember the rampant subway fare evasion? I remember, and it’s happening again.”
The Post blew the whistle on the gritty encampment on Friday, but locals said the ratty tents and makeshift shelters have dotted the area for weeks, with panhandlers nagging tourists while sex workers, drug dealers and thieves ply their trades in broad daylight.
The brazen squatters even tapped into public utility poles for electricity on Tuesday.
“In just half-a-year, Mayor Mamdani’s policies have managed to turn the West Side into Skid Row,” city Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) told The Post Tuesday.
“The administration is repeating the same ridiculous hands-off approach to the homeless that destroyed LA and San Francisco, and now we have a 12-block homeless campsite in Manhattan.
“Way to go DSA,” she added, referring to the Democratic Socialists of America, the lefty group that counts Mamdani as a member.
Mamdani wasted no time repeal former Mayor Eric Adams’ policy that called for cops to take an aggressive stance to clear encampments and at-risk homeless folks off the streets.
Instead, Mamdani’s larger and “more humane” plan for dealing with the Big Apple’s homeless crisis shifted to a “housing-first approach” through the Department of Community Safety to rely on outreach teams of civilian social workers rather than cops to connect the homeless.
Under the policy, police can’t tear down encampments until the outreach teams get seven days to counsel the homeless occupants and try to connect them to services.
The NYPD, which began to lose the role of addressing homeless services under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, had to cede enforcement to the city Department of Homeless Services under Mamdani, and are only authorized to step in when there is a crime or emergency, or to protect city personnel.
“The Mamdani Administration has stopped the failed encampment sweep policies of the past and moving forward will connect New Yorkers to the resources they need to thrive and to build a New York where everyone has a safe, affordable place to call home,” the city sanitation department said in a statement.
On Tuesday, a City Hall rep assured The Post, “This site will be cleaned.”
Brian Stettin, a senior advisor on severe mental illness under Adams, said that’s all well and good — but now the city actually has to follow through.
“It’s perfectly reasonable to spend a week attempting a voluntary resolution before dismantling an encampment,” Stettin said. “But people will quickly lose faith in that policy if they see the city dragging its feet. The 7-day clock should start as soon as DHS confirms the presence of an encampment.”
It just hasn’t happened on Mamdani’s watch.
“This is embarrassing and a big black eye on the city, especially with FIFA tourists,” one veteran cop griped. “The Intrepid is a big tourist attraction, and what are people from all over the world thinking when they walk by this encampment?”
On Tuesday, cops on patrol ordered two encampments to unplug from city utility poles they were using to steal electricity — but the reprimand only lasts as long as police are in sight.
Meanwhile, Mamdani only spoke on the mess on Monday — and largely shrugged it off.
“We are focused on connecting New Yorkers to shelter and on establishing a pipeline to stable housing, not just moving New Yorkers from one place to another place,” he said. “To this specific encampment that you brought up, we’re going to look into the details of that.”
Additional reporting by Joe Marino and Larry Celona
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