NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams once again doubled down on his policy of removing homeless encampments from city streets — displaying stark photos of the encampments and continuing to bemoan the city’s “dysfunction” to drive home his point Wednesday at a City Hall news conference.
The mayor’s plan to remove the encampments emerged publicly last week. Since then, it’s been met with a chorus of criticism from advocates who say it’s too heavy handed and would undermine the trust the city’s trying to establish with people it’s attempting to entice into a shelter.
The encampment sweeps began on March 18, and on Wednesday, Adams and city officials revealed that so far 244 have been identified and 239 have been “cleaned.” Still, only five homeless people have accepted services from the city as a result of sweeps, according to Adams, who predicted that, based on a similar initiative to remove homeless people from the subway system, that number will go up.
