Neighbors in Westchester Square say a historic church property has turned into a homeless encampment.<\/p>\n
News 12 walked through the cemetery at St. Peter\u2019s Church, where the gate was wide open, and signs of people living on the property were clearly visible. Trash, food containers and blankets were scattered throughout the cemetery, and there were indications people may be sleeping inside mausoleums.<\/p>\n
Several families told News 12 they have relatives buried there and are heartbroken by what they\u2019re seeing. One woman said people were living on top of her mother\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n
News 12 reached out to the Episcopal Diocese of New York, which oversees the property. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson sent us the following statement, \u201cThis week, the Quality of Life team from NYPD\u2019s 45th precinct will be moving the three unhoused people from the property, and connecting them with the health services that they need. We have been working on this solution for several months. The Sanitation department and our team will then go in and clean up the area.\u201d<\/p>\n
The church\u2019s website says it recently reopened and is holding Sunday services at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n
Neighbors say they are not trying to push people out but want help for those living on the property especially as temperatures drop.<\/p>\n
The concerns come as Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani discusses new plans aimed at getting people off the streets and into shelters and permanent housing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neighbors in Westchester Square say a historic church property has turned into a homeless encampment. News 12 walked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-72756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72756","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=72756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}