IT'S LAIR & BACK IN EAST VILLAGE
Encampment cleared out (and rebuilt 12 hours later)
City workers rousted a troublesome East Village homeless encampment Saturday — only to have the vagrants return hours later and begin rebuilding their shantytown.
“We had a blissful 12 hours of peace,” Vanessa Valdes told The Post on Sunday of the campsite on Second Avenue between Seventh Street and St. Mark’s.
“They are back and rebuilding structures again. I saw five people, including the sex worker interviewed in [a Post] article. What can be done?”
Photos taken Sunday show a tarp stretched from the scaffolding to an apparent cot on the ground — sheltering a crooked shelving unit as two people snoozed away in the heat.
Long the subject of complaints from neighbors, the encampment — complete with desks and tables — rose up under scaffolding at the foot of a newly rebuilt apartment building, the site of a thunderous gas explosion that gutted the structure in 2015.
Mayor de Blasio vowed to clear out similar encampments in the Big Apple, saying the city would do “whatever it takes” to get it done.
“Anyone who tells us about an encampment, we’re going to have it addressed right away by Homeless Services, Sanitation,” de Blasio said on Thursday, one day after police cleared out the “Occupy City Hall” encampment outside his office. “Whatever it takes.” On Saturday, workers moved in on the East Village site, with a sanitation crew showing up to clear out the space and haul away furniture.
However, locals said the homeless occupants simply went across the street, waited under the marquee of the Orpheum Theatre and returned when the city workers were gone.
At 9 a.m. Sunday, two members of the Manhattan Outreach Consortium stopped by and handed out water bottles — and offered masks to guard against the spread of the coronavirus, which the indigent declined.
“I call them the end-of-theworld people,” said one 50-yearold neighbor, who only identified herself as Ann.
“They’re a little different. they’re young. They say they want to live off the grid.
“I think the building owners
need to be more vigilant,” she said.
“See where they set up? That’ was the gas-explosion building. It was all set to open again, they were all ready and the pandemic hit and shut them down.
“They like it there because nobody bothers them and there is a phone-recharging kiosk,” Ann added, referencing a LinkNYC station installed by the city.
“They’re not going anywhere,” she said of the gathering.
But their presence was seen as an eyesore by local residents and merchants, who said the scene is scaring away customers.
“They clear it out two times. They come back right away,” said Mike Tarabih, 45, a cook at the nearby B&H Restaurant.
“It’s too much. The blankets, the beds the furniture. They make apartments on the sidewalk. Customers say, ‘No, I go somewhere else.’ ”
“Customers go to Third Avenue,” he said. “They can’t come to be yelled at, be spit at. It’s no good.”
In a statement Sunday, the city Department Homeless Services said the agency responds to similar situations “as quickly as we can,” but said the encampments represent a challenge to outreach workers.
“Anytime we encounter or learn about a condition on the street that needs to be addressed, we do so as quickly as we can, discussing directly with any unsheltered individuals who may be there at the time the options and resources available to them, and coordinating with partner agencies as needed,” DHS spokesman Isaac McGinn said in an e-mail.
“Engaging those in need isn’t easy or quick work, nor is accepting services for those who’ve lived unsheltered for some time,” McGinn added.
“It requires persistence, compassion and trust, and we will keep coming back.”