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Join Telegram ChannelA New York City councilman has declared a humanitarian crisis on Manhattan's West Side, painting a grim picture of streets lined with homeless people with drug addictions and mental illness in a letter to Mayor Eric Adams.
Councilman Erik Bottcher, who represents Manhattan's Third District, pleaded with Adams for “immediate assistance to address the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the streets and subways of New York City” in a letter dated July 18, 2024.
Bottcher noted that several areas, including parts of Times Square, the Garment District and Washington State Park, were “particularly hard hit.”
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On Monday, September 12, 2022, at noon, a man slept on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, just one block from Times Square, with his face covered by a sign from SEIU Local 1199 demanding “Basic Wage!” for workers. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
“In these and other areas, significant numbers of people are engaged in a range of illegal and anti-social activities that are causing significant distress and fear among voters, many of whom are elderly or families with young children,” he wrote.
The New York Post sent reporters to the area following Bottcher’s letter. The reporters described several “unstable and disturbed homeless people” during their visit over the past two weeks. The paper said needles were regularly seen on the street, highlighting “a dead-eyed junkie wandering with a needle sticking out of his hand.” along 36th Street, near bustling Penn Station. Apparently mentally ill people lie unconscious on benches and on the sidewalk, or move through the streets, often barefoot, taunting tourists and locals alike.
A security guard who works in the area, identified by the Post as Fisher, told reporters he sees people using drugs “all day and all night” in the public courtyard of the Midtown Holiday Inn. Public urination and defecation are the norm, he said.
“It’s crazy here,” Fisher told the Post. “They even have sex here on the benches. They urinate and defecate here.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 30: A homeless man sits in Times Square on November 30, 2022 in New York City. New York Mayor Eric Adams has introduced a plan to allow homeless people with mental illness to be hospitalized against their will. (Photo by Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress)
According to the Post, employees at the Midtown Holiday Inn began turning on sprinklers in hopes of keeping the wreckage away.
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“But some homeless people are making it a shower experience, even using soap, as one hotel guest complained in an online review,” the outlet wrote.
Others came into the hotel “calling us names,” Rocky Caban, 45, the hotel’s front desk manager, told the Post. “They tried to hit us and everything. We sent the guard outside to try to stop them from coming in,” he said.
“Every day we have to live with this situation. I see the same people every day. I see them getting picked up and put in an ambulance and the next day they’re back outside,” Caban added.
A homeless man partially blocks a subway staircase in New York City on September 10, 2022. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
New York-based PIX11 reported similar findings during its visit to the region last week.
“Within the first 10 minutes of arriving on West 30th Street, a PIX11 News crew observed one man being removed from the sidewalk by EMS, another exposing himself and a third suffering an apparent mental episode,” they wrote.
Bottcher called it a “heartbreaking reality.”
“This… not only causes immense suffering to these individuals, but also has an increasing negative impact on residents and businesses as we enter the middle of summer,” he wrote in the letter.
He said the NYPD was “stretched to its limits” responding to calls in the area regarding “open drug sales and consumption, destruction of property, physical and verbal intimidation, shoplifting and other illegal activities.”
He urged Adams to expand his controversial B-HEARD program to Manhattan’s West Side. The program, launched in 2021, aims to connect people with mental health issues with professionals and is already operating in 31 precincts across New York City, PIX11 reported. The program sends unarmed paramedics, social workers and other first responders to respond to some 911 calls instead of NYPD Officers.
Mayor Eric Adams attends a press conference as an NYPD officer claims he was the ringleader of a campaign donation scheme to help the New York City mayor. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, file)
Adams reportedly promised to expand the program citywide last year, but the plan stalled, according to the outlet.
“The West Side of Manhattan needs this program now,” Bottcher writes.
He also urged Adam to support legislation he introduced that would require the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to place licensed social workers in New York City police stations across the city.
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“Our neighborhoods need help immediately,” he wrote. “The status quo cannot continue.”
The mayor's office did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.