A New York City council member has declared a humanitarian crisis on Manhattan's West Side, painting a grim picture of streets filled with homeless, drug-addicted and mentally ill people in a letter to Mayor Eric Adams.
Councilman Erik Bottcher, who represents Manhattan's Third District, asked Adams for “immediate assistance in addressing the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the streets and subways of New York City” in a letter dated July 18, 2024.
Bottcher highlighted several areas, including parts of Times Square, the Garment District and Washington State Park, as “particularly severe.”
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On Monday, September 12, 2022, at noon, a man was sleeping on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, just one block from Times Square, his face covered by a SEIU Local 1199 sign demanding “First Class Wage!” for workers. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
“In these areas and others, a significant number of people are engaging in a range of illegal and anti-social activities which are causing significant distress and fear amongst residents, 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 “strange, unstable, drug-addled vagrants” who had visited the site over the past two weeks. The outlet said needles are regularly seen on the street, noting “one dead-eyed drug addict wandering around with a needle sticking out of his hand.” along 36th Street near bustling Penn Station. Apparently mentally ill people lay unconscious on benches and pavement, or walked the streets, often barefoot, taunting tourists and locals.
A security guard who works in the area, identified by the Post only as Fisher, told reporters he sees people doing drugs “all day and all night” in the public courtyard of the Midtown Holiday Inn. Public urination and defecation is the norm, he said.
“It's crazy here,” Fisher told the Post. “They even have sex on the benches. They pee 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 City Mayor Eric Adams unveiled 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 have begun turning on the sprinklers in hopes of keeping the strays away.
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“But some homeless people are turning it into a shower experience, even using soap, as one hotel guest complained in an online review,” the outlet wrote.
Others come into the hotel “cursing at us,” Rocky Caban, 45, a front desk supervisor at the hotel, told The Post. “They try to hit us and everything. We have the guard outside to try to stop them from coming in,” he said.
“Every day we have to go through this. I see the same people every day. I see them being picked up and taken away in an ambulance and the next day they're out again,” Caban added.
A homeless man partially blocks a subway staircase in New York City on September 10, 2022. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
New York City-based PIX11 reported similar findings when it visited the area last week.
“Within the first 10 minutes of being on West 30th Street, a PIX11 News crew saw one man being removed from the sidewalk by EMS, another man exposing himself, and a third man suffering from 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 is “overstretched” to respond to calls in the area about “open sale and use of narcotics, destruction of property, physical and verbal intimidation, shoplifting and other illegal activities.”
She urged Adams to expand her controversial B-HEARD program to the West Side of Manhattan. The program, launched in 2021, seeks to connect people suffering from mental health issues with professionals and is already operational in 31 New York City boroughs, PIX11 reported. The program sends unarmed paramedics, social workers and other first responders to respond to certain 911 calls instead of New York Police Officers.
Mayor Eric Adams attends a press conference as an NYPD officer says he was the ringleader of a campaign donation scheme to help the New York City mayor. (AP Photo/Eduardo Muñoz Álvarez, File)
Adams reportedly pledged to expand the program citywide last year, but the plan has stalled, the outlet said.
“The West Side of Manhattan needs this program now,” Bottcher wrote.
She 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 districts across the city.
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“Our neighborhoods need help right now,” he wrote. “We cannot allow the status quo to continue.”
The mayor's office did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
