City workers took down a gritty homeless encampment near NYU dorms — only to have it move down the street, as one vagrant griped, “I thought Mamdani was supposed to be supportive of the homeless?”
NYPD cops and sanitation workers showed up at the East Ninth Street shantytown around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, telling the three sidewalk squatters inside they had to pack up and move — which they did, setting up a new shelter just 100 yards away.
“They just made up some new bulls–t! They’re supposed to give us notice,” one vagrant whined. “They just showed up and said, ’emergency cleanup.’ They gave us 10 minutes to move our stuff. This is total bulls–t.”
The Post exposed the 30-foot shelter on Monday, which took up much of the sidewalk across from the university dorm building at East Ninth Street and Third Avenue — the latest shantytown to pop up in the Big Apple thanks to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s hands-off approach to the homeless crisis.
Mamdani’s policy called for cops to be prohibited from clearing the unsightly encampments for at least a week to give city outreach workers to sweet talk vagrants and offer them services.
The controversial policy got lax this week, when the administration said it was not banning the NYPD from responding to 311 complaints on the camps — instead telling cops to call 311 themselves if they spotted one of the filthy sidewalk shelters.
Instead, overworked and understaffed homeless services and social services staffers bear the burden.
On Wednesday, the occupants of the Ninth Avenue camp grabbed their stuff, moved north to the south-facing corner — then locked their carts and luggage to a railing and started over again.
A city worker was even kind enough to ask if they wanted to grab any more of their gear, then left.
Mark Zafrin, a lifelong New Yorker and lawyer who lives in the neighborhood, said he was worried about City Hall’s latest move to handcuff cops even further.
“That’s going to get somebody hurt,” he said. “If you don’t have the police here, somebody is going to be stoned, crazed and is going to go after the outreach worker, and somebody is going to get seriously hurt.
“How can they change anything without the police there backing the up?” Zafrin said. “Without the threat or intimidation of the police there, nothing is going to change. They’re going to remain exactly where they are and they’re going to do what they want to do.”
Another local who identified himself as Dillian said he was concerned the new homestead of the NYU dorm vagrants would spark trouble with food delivery workers who have “taken over” Abe Lebewohl Park.
“It’ll be noisy tonight,” he said. “Lot of fights tonight. “They’re going to move up the street tonight and it’s going to be on. There’s a bunch of guys who live up in that park right there. The delivery guys. You know, the guys with the scooters delivering food and stuff. They’ve taken over the park and live there.”
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