MIDWESTERN MARX
  • Home
  • Online Articles
    • Articles >
      • All
      • News
      • Politics
      • Theory
      • Book Reviews
      • Chinese Philosophy Dialogues
    • American Socialism Travels
    • Youth League
  • Dr. Riggins' Book Series
    • Eurocommunism and the State
    • Debunking Russiagate
    • The Weather Makers
    • Essays on Bertrand Russell and Marxism
    • The Truth Behind Polls
    • Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
    • Lenin's Materialism & Empirio-Criticism
    • Mao's Life
    • Lenin's State and Rev
    • Lenin's LWC Series
    • Anti-Dühring Series
  • Store
    • Books
    • Merchandise
  • YouTube
  • Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
  • Contact
    • Article Submissions
    • The Marks of Capital
  • Online Library
  • Staff

3/31/2022

NYC Mayor Eric Adams evicts hundreds from homeless encampments. By: Peoples Dispatch

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Despite crackdown, Adams presented no clear alternative to the streets and transit system for unhoused people afraid to use unsafe shelter system
Picture
Homeless people in New York City report feeling safer on the streets than in shelters, yet Eric Adams plans to evict the unhoused from street encampments. (Photo via: ScifoRobert)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is pressing ahead with his plan to evict NYC’s homeless from one of the only places they can afford to live: the streets. This past weekend, Adams promised to dismantle 150 homeless encampments throughout the City. On Monday, March 28, homeless individuals living under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) saw their belongings stolen and destroyed by NYC sanitation workers on Adams’ orders. On March 30, ​​Adams and city officials revealed that so far 244 encampments have been identified and 239 have been “cleaned”, or evicted.

“We cannot tolerate these makeshift, unsafe houses on the side of highways, in trees, in front of schools, in parks. This is just not acceptable, and it’s something I’m just not going to allow to happen,” Adams told press on Tuesday, March 28. After the BQE eviction, 41-year-old Heriberto Medina Jr., who had been living under the highway for two years, told the New York Post that he “was left with his bike, a pair of backpacks and white Fila sneakers.” 

Adams has expressed a desire to move the City’s over 90,000 homeless people into shelters. “I’m seeing clean housing for people, where they’re able to get meals, they’re able to take showers.” Adams claims that “the safest place for people who are homeless right now … is a shelter.”

And yet, of the over 200 people who Adams has kicked off the streets, only 5 accepted services from City workers. New York City’s homeless population has a documented aversion to shelters. Out of 177 homeless people surveyed in a report by the nonprofit organization Coalition for the Homeless, only 11% said they would find refuge in shelters when temperatures fall. A majority, 62%, said they relied on the public transit system for shelter in the cold. As the report states, “Seventy-seven percent of respondents stated that they have tried the municipal shelter system and instead choose to stay on the streets…The main reasons for not returning to the shelter system were safety (38 percent) and difficulties with the rules and procedures (25 percent).” This aversion is not without good reason, numerous reports including one released by the New York State Senate detail unsafe and unsanitary conditions in New York’s shelters.

If homeless people are not allowed to sleep on the streets, and cannot safely stay in shelters, where can the newly displaced turn to? While decrying sleeping on the streets as “inhumane” and promising “healthy living conditions with wraparound services”, Adams has not specified what these conditions would be.  Homeless advocates worry that the city’s unhoused population will simply be forced into an endless migration around the city’s streets. As Craig Hughes, a social worker at the Urban Justice Center, told the New York Times, the mayor’s plan “has always been an effort to hide homelessness rather than to get people housed.”

Adams recently led a similar effort to clear homeless people out of New York City’s transit system, a place which, as the Coalition for the Homeless found, is one of the few places unhoused people can rely on in the cold. City government policy in general has veered to the right since Adams took office, with a rise in street vendor fines, and a vow to bring back controversial anti-gun plainclothes police units. These police units have been twice disbanded after outrage at the disproportionate amount of police killings perpetrated by such officers. 
​

“Regardless of what the naysayers may say, this is exactly what we needed,” Adams said of his reinstatement of the controversial units. Adams also admonished those who exercise their constitutional rights to film the actions of the anti-gun units, saying, “Stop being on top of my police officers while they are carrying out their jobs. That is not acceptable and won’t be tolerated.

Author

Peoples Dispatch


This article was produced by Peoples Dispatch.

Archives

March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020

Share

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

Details

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020

    Categories

    All
    Aesthetics
    Afghanistan
    Althusser
    American Civil War
    American Socialism
    American Socialism Travels
    Anti Imperialism
    Anti-Imperialism
    Art
    August Willich
    Berlin Wall
    Bolivia
    Book Review
    Brazil
    Capitalism
    Censorship
    Chile
    China
    Chinese Philosophy Dialogue
    Christianity
    CIA
    Class
    Climate Change
    COINTELPRO
    Communism
    Confucius
    Cuba
    Debunking Russiagate
    Democracy
    Democrats
    DPRK
    Eco Socialism
    Ecuador
    Egypt
    Elections
    Engels
    Eurocommunism
    Feminism
    Frederick Douglass
    Germany
    Ghandi
    Global Capitalism
    Gramsci
    History
    Hunger
    Immigration
    Imperialism
    Incarceration
    Interview
    Joe Biden
    Labor
    Labour
    Lenin
    Liberalism
    Lincoln
    Linke
    Literature
    Lula Da Silva
    Malcolm X
    Mao
    Marx
    Marxism
    May Day
    Media
    Medicare For All
    Mencius
    Militarism
    MKULTRA
    Mozi
    National Affairs
    Nelson Mandela
    Neoliberalism
    New Left
    News
    Nina Turner
    Novel
    Palestine
    Pandemic
    Paris Commune
    Pentagon
    Peru Libre
    Phillip-bonosky
    Philosophy
    Political-economy
    Politics
    Pol Pot
    Proletarian
    Putin
    Race
    Religion
    Russia
    Settlercolonialism
    Slavery
    Slavoj-zizek
    Social-democracy
    Socialism
    South-africa
    Soviet-union
    Summer-2020-protests
    Syria
    Theory
    The-weather-makers
    Trump
    Venezuela
    War-on-drugs
    Whatistobedone...now...likenow-now
    Wilfrid-sellers
    Worker-cooperatives
    Xunzi

All ORIGINAL Midwestern Marx content is under Creative Commons
(CC BY-ND 4.0) which means you can republish our work only if it is attributed properly (link the original publication to the republication) and not modified. 
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Online Articles
    • Articles >
      • All
      • News
      • Politics
      • Theory
      • Book Reviews
      • Chinese Philosophy Dialogues
    • American Socialism Travels
    • Youth League
  • Dr. Riggins' Book Series
    • Eurocommunism and the State
    • Debunking Russiagate
    • The Weather Makers
    • Essays on Bertrand Russell and Marxism
    • The Truth Behind Polls
    • Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
    • Lenin's Materialism & Empirio-Criticism
    • Mao's Life
    • Lenin's State and Rev
    • Lenin's LWC Series
    • Anti-Dühring Series
  • Store
    • Books
    • Merchandise
  • YouTube
  • Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
  • Contact
    • Article Submissions
    • The Marks of Capital
  • Online Library
  • Staff