Now that New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio completely trashed Manhattan, he decided to be equitable and give Brooklyn a chance at housing the homeless.

I mean, after all, Mayor De Blasio didn’t skip a beat when shuffling recovering Coronavirus patients to nursing homes. Why would we expect he’d keep the homeless out of a Brooklyn neighborhood?

The latest from yesterday:

During four different times Friday afternoon, The Post observed four yellow buses drop off more than 40 vagrants with their belongings in trash bags at the Hotel Indigo on Duffield Street, where a sign on the front door read that it ‘cannot accommodate reservations’ for guests and redirected those with reservations to a nearby Sheraton hotel.-The New York Post

The Indigo Hotel on Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn has seen about 40 vagrants with belongings in trash bags check in. The hotel is no longer taking reservations from customers and is referring guests to The Sheraton down the street. A few weeks back, The Aloft Hotel, just a few steps away, was converted into a man’s shelter.

According to this, residents have seen an influx of trash, cat-calling and have experienced a general decay in their surroundings by some of the unsavory types that have also been clumped in with some people with legitimate need for housing. There’s drinking, there’s smoking, there’s unsavory types hanging out in parks where moms take their children to play.

Even though De Blasio said there would eventually be an decrease in housing the homeless in New York hotels due to a decrease in COVID-19 cases, some neighborhoods have already seen the damage. The damage is reminiscent of the 70s and 80s pre-Guiliani New York.

Say what you will about Rudy, but he did clean up New York. I remember being a young girl in pre-Guiliani New York. I remember the smut in Times Square, the cat calls hurled at my mom (and me…barely 13 years old). I remember fretting for my mom as she went in and out of Port Authority bus terminal daily on her commute to and from her job in Midtown. I remember the palpable fear I felt of the city at such a young age. I remember being mugged on a subway in the late 80s and I remember the vigilance that was required of anyone who walked certain areas of the city at night. Guiliani shined up the Big Apple. I will always love New York and always be proud of her. But, she is rotting fast.

It is not only in Brooklyn where residents are seeing homeless shuttled into their neighborhoods. New York’s Upper West Side (UWS) has been in a death spiral. These are not the UWS sidewalks you would see the “Carries” strolling in their Manolo Blahniks footloose-and-fancy-free after a night at “Big’s”. Nope. Populations have been moved into The Lucerne, Park West, the Belleclaire and the Belnord.

I see a lot of people that are sort of down on their luck either high or intoxicated, and I see more of them than I normally see.
People are generally concerned to go outside now.”-Gary Kokalari, Upper West Side Resident

The concern has become so great that a once small social media group for residents has blown up to over 10,000 members.

I’m so glad we’re filling NYC’s hotels with homeless people doing drugs instead of the old business model of having tourists, great restaurants, rooftop bars and lots of hospitality jobs.

Deblasio’s New York is the best. 🙃#DeBlasioMustGo

— Jason Hunting (@goodjasonhuntng) August 22, 2020

Just like Durkan’s Seattle. Or Garcetti’s Los Angeles. Or Breed’s San Francisco. Or Wheeler’s Portland. I’ll let you connect the dots on the commonalities of these leaders.

Despite the trash, the defecating in the streets, the cat-calls, the public intoxication, and residents feeling unsafe, some residents will continue to vote in these leaders. These very leaders who couldn’t care less about their neighborhoods or helping any of the marginalized people they have shipped off to these boutique hotels. The bo-hos in the flats and upper-crust in the $5,000/month apartments will go Blue again down the ballot in November. If they get their ballots because yeah, Trump’s messing with USPS to throw the election (cough). Why? Because Guiliani’s New York was too “gentrified” or something.

Outside one of the hotels, the Belleclaire, a dazed-looking man stood on the corner in a bathrobe and slippers. A few yards away, a perky half-dozen or so leftists responded to the Post story by bringing a large box of colored chalk and scrawling welcoming slogans to the homeless in several colors on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the Belleclaire.”-Kyle Smith, The New York Post

Because chalk drawings erase inequality. Because platitudes written in chalk bring back those who died from complications of COVID-19. Chalk cheers up those who have become depressed and suicidal who have lost their jobs, who have spent months on lockdown. Because chalk in the streets is so “beautiful”, it resurrects businesses that have had to board-up because of lack of customers or utter destruction due to “peaceful protests”. Because chalk does so much to help the epidemic of homelessness and addiction in our cities. Look, the addicts feel welcome! Imagine all the homeless, crapping in the streets. It’s easy if you try, right, Bill? These people have done lost their minds. Mayor Bill De Blasio needs to be given a Hefty trash bag and sent packing and KIDS need to be put back on those big, yellow busses and sent back to SCHOOL. The chalk, the coloring books and the stuffed animals need to be put away and New Yorkers, you need to show everyone the colossal balls we know you all have. Seriously. Do it. Before it’s too late.

Photo Credit: Guiseppe Milo/FlickR/Creative Commons/Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)/Cropped