It\u2019s like a game of homeless hide and seek.<\/p>\n
The unsightly homeless encampment<\/a> that marred Manhattan\u2019s West Side near the Intrepid Museum for months has been repeatedly cleaned out by the city \u2014 but it stubbornly keeps popping up.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s awful,\u201d said a neighborhood worker whose company just moved to the area. \u201cI wish that they weren\u2019t right here. I\u2019ve seen them clear them out a few times. They come back.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re there every day, it\u2019s a tough situation. We just moved, you know, it\u2019s really tough,\u201d he added. \u201cMy coworker just doesn\u2019t wanna come to the office. They don\u2019t feel safe. I don\u2019t think anyone does, you know? It\u2019s hard to feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Tourists walk past a sprawling homeless encampment blocking part of the sidewalk along 12th Avenue. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n Liam James is pictured at his homeless encampment on Monday near West 45th Street and 12th Avenue. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n One family of tourists from Toronto shielded their young son while passing one of the encampments.<\/p>\n \u201cYou notice I kept him kind of, like, behind as the dude walked by,\u201d one parent said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the first time [seeing it], but it\u2019s not unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n The Post first blew the whistle on the filthy encampment that ran across 12 city blocks<\/a> in June, with tents and crude shelters lining sidewalks used by tourists and locals, some furnished with stolen goods while makeshift brothels and drug dens operated in broad daylight. <\/p>\n Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration was slow to respond to the foul shantytown<\/a>, in large part due to a City Hall policy of barring cops<\/a> from acting for at least a week while outreach workers were dispatched.<\/p>\n Members of the New York City Department of Sanitation clear a homeless encampment on the West Side in July. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n Sanitation workers clear up the unsightly homeless encampment on West 34th Street. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n The shelters were finally removed, but vagrants just set up camp nearby and later returned \u2014 and months later the pattern is still playing out, frustrating legit residents and workers.<\/p>\n One large shantytown on West 46th Street near an Amazon warehouse was finally cleared, workers there said Monday \u2014 but the sidewalk squatters simply moved to 45th and 47th streets and started again. <\/p>\n Trash is seen scattered on the sidewalk along 12th Avenue between West 45th and West 46th streets. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n \u201cThey kept saying, \u2018You have to leave, you have to leave,’\u201d said Liam James, one of the regulars at the homeless encampment. \u201cIt was both the police and sanitation, and they offer you a place to stay after they do. But the thing is that they want to throw everything away.\u201d<\/p>\n James said he was put in a temporary apartment by the city, but said he misses the streets and his friends, who he said have become like family.<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t mind sleeping in my apartment if I had anyone around me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think that being alone going through this, it\u2019s really difficult. You don\u2019t have your friends or family.\u201d<\/p>\n Jahsor Banks, another shantytown regular, said he doesn\u2019t fault the city for \u201cdoing their job,\u201d but said that, \u201cafter staying with the people for so long, it\u2019s like you got a bond.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s like a game of homeless hide and seek. The unsightly homeless encampment that marred Manhattan\u2019s West Side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[32941,2000,35138,75,84,83,57,9,24,63,58,112987,82],"class_list":["post-334719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-homeless-encampments","tag-homelessness","tag-intrepid-museum","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-us-news","tag-uss-intrepid","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}