Protests Mount Over Mayor's 'Cruel' Homeless Encampment Sweeps

NEW YORK, NY — A movement to physically stop Mayor Eric Adams' controversial clean-up of homeless encampments is growing across the city as activists urge the mayor to take on new methods of helping unhoused New Yorkers.

Activists who blocked homeless New Yorkers from police in a seven-hour East Village standoff last week are only a small part of a mounting army of volunteers who plan to protect encampments from the sweeps, which have already torn down hundreds of the makeshift homes, according to local advocates.

"A new sweep defense network is building," Tompkins Homeless Collective member Sinthia Vee told Protest_NYC after her tent was targeted by police in the East Village. "This is everything to us — the suffering of our people is heartbreaking."

The network includes organizations like the Brooklyn Eviction Defense, Rent Refuse, East Village Mutual Aid, Washington Square Park Mutual Aid and Twitter account NYC Sweeps Alerts, which warns homeless New Yorkers where clean-up teams are headed next, according to Vee.

Police sent to help tear down the encampments have not let the efforts go lightly. In the East Village stand-off, six activists were arrested, along with the leader of the protest, John Grima, who refused to leave his tent, and the encampment was ultimately torn down, according to reports.

Adams has presented his controversial clean-up plan as a means to provide better housing for homeless New Yorkers, though only five people accepted help during the first week of the blitz, which ultimately saw 239 encampments cleared.

Other homeless advocates have taken a different approach to letting their thoughts be known.

On Tuesday, VOCAL-NY released a "roadmap" of alternative methods Adams could take to help unhoused New Yorkers after rallying in the Fulton Street subway station, the same location the mayor revealed a similar plan to remove homeless New Yorkers from the city's subways.

“There is so much work the Adams Administration can do to end homelessness – none of it being encampment sweeps or ousting people from the subways,” said Celina Trowell, VOCAL-NY’s homelessness union organizer. “We can’t emphasize enough the harm that Adams tactics are causing, without providing any improvement on quality of life issues homeless New Yorkers are facing."

The organization, like many advocates, contends the encampment clean-up only further endangers homeless New Yorkers, who often have nowhere else to go given a fear of city shelters.

Of 640 homeless New Yorkers lost their lives last year, 489 of were residing in shelters, according to VOCAL-NY.

The homeless encampment sweeps also go against CDC guidelines that advise local governments to leave encampments where they are if "individual housing options are not available." The mayor has contended that each person encountered by the clean-up teams is offered a space in a shelter, and shown brochures to help quell fears.

Asked Tuesday about VOCAL-NY's roadmap, the mayor's office pointed to Patch to a recent interview with NY1 and pointed to his commitment to add 500 new beds to the shelter system, 350 of which were set up last month.

"This is a right to shelter city. No one is turned away if they need shelters," Adams said. ""I am not going to allow the normalizing of people living on our streets that we have allowed to happen before, and I'm not going to continue to allow that to happen. It is inhumane."

VOCAL-NY's roadmap urges Adams to use all vacant housing stock to rehouse homeless New Yorkers, end encampment sweeps and provide access to public bathrooms.

"The solution to homelessness is housing. The City should invest in affordable permanent housing where our homeless neighbors can reside in peace, away from the elements and other dangers on the street," said The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless in a joint statement Tuesday.

"The Administration can immediately offer real permanent housing and safe, private shelter options to people, and we implore the City to do exactly that, and to cease these cruel, pointless, and ineffective sweeps.”