SUBWAYS’ HOMELESS CRISIS
Riders rail at DeB over vagrants and deranged
Homeless people — including many with mental illness — have crowded the city’s subway system, prompting straphangers to demand action from Mayor de Blasio.
Riders said they were especially concerned about those who could hurt themselves or others because of their mental problems, despite First Lady Chirlane McCray’s self-appointed role as an advocate for increased treatment.
On Wednesday morning, one of them talked to himself while perched on the edge of a platform inside Manhattan’s West 4th Street station, dangling his legs over the rails.
The unidentified man finally limped away, heeding onlookers who urged him to get up before a train arrived.
“You can see their deranged expressions, and they need help,” George Lapidos, 67, of Tribeca, said after the incident. “I’m sure the city is spending money on shelters, but come on. A shelter won’t solve mental-health issues.”
Other riders said they have been screamed at, touched and harassed by mentally ill vagrants all across the transit system. At Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station, a commuter described a frightening incident involving a vagrant inside Manhattan’s 59th Street-Columbus Circle station.
“He started yelling at me, and I was very scared,” said the woman, who identified herself as Brooklyn designer Alexis S., 43. “The homeless people have no place to go but to hang out in the subways or at the stations. I’ve seen zero change since de Blasio has been in office. I really don’t know what he is doing except turning a blind eye.”
At the Jay Street-MetroTech station, another rider said: “I feel so unsafe.”
“The subways are so gross, and homeless people touch and harass me constantly,” said the man, who identified himself as a 31-year-old grad student from Brooklyn. “De Blasio definitely doesn’t have a plan. He goes to Germany and ignores his constituents.”
A woman who gave her name as Marlene W., and said she was a trained physician, said, “I’ve seen homeless people hallucinating, yelling. You have a whole range of psychosis. It is really bad on the subways and at the stations. These people are mentally ill and need mental-health help,” she said.
“De Blasio ran on doing something about mental illness, his wife did discuss helping . . . I am unsure what she is doing these days.”
At the 14th Street Station, where commuters stood on the platform near two homeless men snoozing on a bench, Casey Goldstein said a mayoral visit might finally get the place cleaned up.
“De Blasio should come to this station. It’s a nightmare,” the 31-year-old Upper West Side resident fumed. “I’m paying money for a MetroCard and waiting in filth for a broken train. If he shows up with press, then a cleaning crew will follow.”
In Harlem, a day-camp counselor was spotted herding a group of little kids in matching blue T-shirts away from a homeless man who mumbled to himself while approaching the group inside the 125th Street-Lexington Avenue Station.
“I think if de Blasio comes here, he’ll be able to get an adequate understanding of the problems that commuters here face,” said Dan Cruz, 63.