Woman pitches tent on West Side Highway due to ‘full’ shelter system

A lady fed up with town shelter system pitched a tent on the median of the Westside Freeway.
Stefan Jeremiah for New York Publish

She’s not a cheerful camper.

A middle-aged Japanese European lady who stated she couldn’t get a spot within the metropolis’s packed and horrid shelter system pitched a tent on the median of the West Facet Freeway close to twelfth Avenue and West forty first Road.

“Shelter’s no good for me and full,” she advised The Publish.

The outdoorswoman then yelled on the reporter in damaged English and threatened to name the police.

“I’m getting the Supreme Court docket!” she threatened.

Twitter is already having a discipline day with the freeway encampment.

“Can’t beat these Hudson River views,” learn one tweet. “Nonetheless beats Staten Island,” learn one other.

Others see it as a critically dangerous omen.

“You tolerate one and also you’ll get a whole bunch. This has gotta be taken down instantly,” one particular person commented. 

Residents say tents and vagrancy alongside the freeway began in the beginning of the pandemic and have surged this previous summer time — and town does nothing about it.

The camper stated the shelter was “no good” for her and “full.”

Stefan Jeremiah for New York Publish

“I name it Whac-A-Mole since you see these tents go up, they get cleared out after which they arrive proper again once more,” stated Jason Anderson, who posted a snap of the newest freeway denizen on Twitter. “It highlights an absence of implementing legal guidelines and the city dysfunction that comes from it. It’s one in every of many highway blocks that stop town from returning to regular and feeling like 2019 once more.”

Katie Hamill stated Hell’s Kitchen has turn into such an epicenter of medicine, vagrancy and psychological sickness that this “lady might be there as a result of she feels safer sandwiched in between six lanes of vehicles than on the road the place she may be attacked by unhoused and mentally sick males.”

The city camper has loads of neighbors on the pier and in close by Riverside Park South.

Residents say tents have been popping up all summer time however the metropolis hasn’t stepped in.

Stefan Jeremiah for New York Publish

On Friday, The Publish noticed one homeless man returning to his makeshift abode of painter’s tarps held along with packing tape. One other man reclined on a pleather desk chair. A 3rd stood alongside the riverside walkway, hunched over his purchasing cart for practically an hour.

The town Division of Homeless Companies recognized roughly 3,400 unsheltered folks on Jan. 27, nevertheless advocacy teams just like the Coalition for the Homeless imagine that to be a big undercount.