A coalition of homelessness advocates and homeless individuals gathered on the steps of City Hall on Monday to call for a “formal investigation and review into the NYPD’s policing and treatment of homeless New Yorkers.”
Members of the nonprofit organization Picture the Homeless gathered to publicize an open letter to NYPD Inspector General Philip Eure, which cites police orders for homeless people to vacate public spaces, as well as the confiscation and destruction of personal belongings, as grounds to open a formal inquiry. The letter, penned by the advocacy group Communities United for Police Reform, is co-signed by over 50 local and national advocacy groups, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Legal Aid Society.
Photo caption: Protesters from Picture the Homeless gathered at City Hall on Monday. (Photo: Jeff Stein)
“Over the past two years and especially the past several months, a number of documented incidents and reports, together with pronouncements by top government officials, raise serious concerns about whether homeless people in the city are being targeted with abusive and discriminatory treatment by the NYPD – simply due to their housing status,” the letter states.
“Homeless New Yorkers are entitled to the same rights as any other resident of the city, but some accounts appear to indicate that police have participated in activity violating that notion,” the letter continues.
In particular, the letter references police action in East Harlem in which several homeless New Yorkers had personal property seized and discarded into a Department of Sanitation truck during a September raid. That incident, which was captured on video, is the subject of a notice of claim and could lead to a lawsuit against the city.
The letter also denounces the de Blasio administration’s public efforts to dismantle homeless encampments, “a policy and practice opposed by the U.S. Justice Department in a legal filing,” according to advocates. In his December announcement of the city’s retooled efforts to combat street homelessness – dubbed HOME-STAT to mirror NYPD’s longstanding CompStat system – Mayor Bill de Blasio touted the clearing of 30 homeless encampments, a line that garnered uneasy applause.
At Monday’s press gathering, advocates spoke out against the criminalization of street homelessness, which they say is forbidden by the Community Safety Act, as well as other federal and international laws.
“Being homeless is not a crime, but the NYPD’s targeting of homeless people for law enforcement action when they aren’t violating the law and destroying property – that is a crime,” said Nahal Zamani, an advocacy program manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
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