NYC is failing its homeless residents

The tables and chairs on the Times Square piazza were all filled, except for a grouping of about a half-dozen. It was before this invisible audience of empty seats that the man was screaming a profanity-laced political diatribe. Now and then, he slammed his fist down on a tabletop to emphasize his mysterious point; cops stood and watched. Tourists gave uneasy glances. 

There have always been homeless people in New York City. But over the past few years, especially in the wake of the pandemic lockdowns, something has changed. The city is no longer dealing primarily with souls who fell on hard financial times and sit behind cardboard signs appealing for help. Instead, the streets are awash in aggressive, angry, addicted and too often violent members of society who threaten the social fabric of America’s largest city. 

Some lie half-naked, sprawled on sidewalk concrete, some appear in small gaggles, pooling meager funds for illicit purchases. Others prowl the streets yelling incoherently like the Times Square preacher. One man in a long flowing dress danced seductively across the traffic of taxicab- strewn Eighth Avenue, landing at a light pole on which to perform a kind of striptease. 

These days, the city’s response to all of this seems to be to do nothing. 

Last week, I took a walk through what, in former days, was the busiest street in America. From Times Square, past Herald Square and Penn Station, down through Bryant Park and Union Square, Broadway should be packed with office workers, tourists, characters, hustlers, energy. 

Instead, across from the shopping mecca of Macy’s, a few guys openly sell weed. They have a little scale and parcel out tiny bags affordable to those with no place to go. Addicts openly shoot up on side streets. 

It is only when you really look for it that the full magnitude, the sheer numbers of the problem of the homeless and mentally ill, become apparent. On every single side street, especially those with awnings of scaffolding, they are there. They are there dozing in filthy clothes or staring in a drug-addled dream state. The street has become their bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. 

And almost everywhere, men — almost always men — muttering to themselves, screaming at phantoms, veering into the paths of others on the sidewalk. No one — not the cops, not any outreach group — was there to help them. And if they were, would the city allow them to force them to go to a shelter or a hospital, get cleaned up, get diagnosed? 

Disorder in our streets was an issue in this year’s mayor’s race. Back in June, then-candidate Andrew Yang took heat from progressives for saying in a debate that, “yes, mentally ill people have rights, but you know who else have rights? We do.” He went on to say, “We have the right to walk the street and not fear for our safety because a mentally ill person is going to lash out at us.” 

That this was a controversial comment is itself a…