10
COURIER LIFE, APRIL 1-7, 2022
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN &
DEAN MOSES
A homeless encampment
beneath the Brooklyn
Queens Expressway
in Williamsburg was
cleared by city agencies
on March 28, removing
several homeless people
and their belongings from
their longtime shelter as a
new mayoral policy takes
effect.
The Department of Sanitation,
the New York City
Police Department, and a
homeless outreach team carried
out the mayor’s newest
initiative, instructing people
to gather belongings they
wanted to keep, as the rest —
tents, clothing, and more —
would be thrown away.
“This effort is about taking
care of our people and
our public spaces because
no New Yorker deserves
to live on the street,” said
Mayor Eric Adams in a
statement. “We are breaking
down siloes and working
together across government
to keep New Yorkers
safe and our streets clean.
These are basic expectations
we have for our city,
and we are going to deliver.”
Adams told The New
York Times about his plan
to clear homeless encampments
in the city within
two weeks last Friday. Gothamist
later reported that
the effort had already begun.
The policy came shortly after
Adams announced a
crackdown against people
sleeping on subway trains
and in stations.
“Encampments,” according
to the city’s 311
portal, are anything from
mattresses to tents and
tarps. The mayor’s office
has said the policy is targeting
about 150 campsites
and promised that officers
will not be heavy handed
during the sweep and
pledges that they will wear
their body-worn cameras
throughout the process.
Notice will be posted 24
hours before each sweep,
a spokesperson said, and
outreach teams will offer
to connect anyone who appears
to be living on the
street with services, including
shelter for those
who are interested.
Adams is urging those
living on the streets to enter
the shelter system. But
those experiencing homelessness
say it is not so easy.
“I am not going back,”
Heriberto Medina Jr. told
Brooklyn Paper’s sister
publication amNewYork
Metro. “When I was at a
shelter I was attacked and I
had my skull cracked. I am
not going back.”
Sweeps have become
more and more frequent in
the last few years, displacing
thousands of people as
their shelters were tossed
out. As of January 2021,
there were roughly 2,376
“unsheltered” homeless
people living on New York
City’s streets, according
to an annual city survey.
About 117 of those people
were living in Brooklyn, a
significant drop from January
2020, when the survey
counted about 400 unsheltered
people in Brooklyn.
But advocacy groups like
Coalition for the Homeless
say those surveys often undercount
the number of unsheltered
homeless people
in any given year.
Monday’s sweep was the
third such “cleanup” to occur
beneath the BQE in a
number of days, according
to community groups. Just a
few blocks away, near Withers
Avenue, two well-established
encampments were
cleared away without warning,
said Benjamin Adam,
an organizer with North
Brooklyn Essentials, a mutual
aid group focused on
Heriberto Medina Jr., who had been living in an encampment below
the BQE, had many of his belongings trashed during a sweep
the morning of March 28. Photo by Dean Moses.
making connections with
and providing resources for
their homeless neighbors.
After the first “phase”
of sweeps, the task force
will re-canvass the city to
identify any new encampments,
according to the
mayor’s office.
In the meantime, outreach
teams have been
traveling through the subways
and encampments as
part of Adams’ new policies,
often accompanied
by police. Their goal, usually,
is to get people into
a safer place, whether it’s
one night at a drop-in shelter
or a more permanent
home. According to city
data, outreach teams spoke
with nearly 260 people on
Sunday, March 27. Just 13
elected to head to a shelter
This story has been edited
for brevity. For more,
visit BrooklynPaper.com.
City ‘sweeps’ homeless encampment
below BQE after Adams directive
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