East Village homeless individuals are decrying outreach workers for riding inside police vehicles as they travel from encampment sweep to encampment sweep, charging that it ruins “trust.”
On Wednesday morning outreach workers, sanitation, and the NYPD returned to 9th Street and 1st Avenue to perform yet another encampment sweep. Dragging chairs and tables from underneath scaffolding, DSNY dumped belongings into the back of a garbage truck while a DSS-DHS worker offered those living on the street several services. However, despite having just the clothes on their back and several plastic bags to their names, they refused the offer.
DSS-DHS has repeatedly told amNewYork Metro that the agency sees denials as a work in progress, which, through repeated visits, will build trust between the outreach worker and the impacted individual. Those living with street homeless say they feel differently, changing that trust is lost when they see workers riding with law enforcement.
“It makes it seem like they are on the same team, you know, and it’s not a team to help us, it’s a team to fight us or just to get us out the way,” Remech Hall said, who has been undomiciled for about a year.
Hall, along with his peers, said that he would never accept placement inside of a shelter due to what he cites as hellish conditions. Yet, for the first time, Hall says he was offered a place in a hotel and wanted to accept it but said he couldn’t find the trust to do so.
“I never really heard that. All I heard was about either shelter or safe havens, I’ve never heard about hotels,” Hall said. “I just don’t have that trust.”
Several NYPD officers performing sweeps across the city who asked not to be identified have expressed desires to steer away from the operation and instead focus on “crime.” Instead, they say they end up serving as security service for agents that those directly impacted don’t respect.
“I don’t necessarily trust the badge. So, when I see somebody who’s supposed to be helping me supporting that badge, it makes me a little irritated,” a man who identified himself as Tripp said, who has only been homeless for about a week.
In response to these complaints, a DSS-DHS reiterated that police and DSNY are merely used during encampment sweeps while also stating that these sweeps have also been in practice since before the Adams administration.
“Encampments are not good for the city, they are not good for communities, they are not good for Clints. Since the de Blasio administration, before the Bloomberg administration, nobody has allowed encampments to remain on the street. This is coming from a place of care for individuals,” DHS Commissioner Molly Wasow Park told amNewYork Metro. “Our goal is to help people transition to an alternative that is more stable and healthier for them.”
Eduardo Ventura, who stays on the street in the East Village and says he is being harassed by encampment sweeps disagrees.
“They are working with the NYPD. They are getting paid to harass me,” Ventura said.
According to NYPD sources, the encampment sweep is performed in the area due to numerous 311 complaints from local residents and businesses.
