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Encampment set up on Park Row and Beekman
A man has set up a makeshift shelter on the median of Park Row at Beekman Street — just across from the east entrance to City Hall Park. It is complete with a couch and a dog pen and takes up six feet in each direction at least.
C. said the dog is loosely caged inside, but lunged at his dog as they walked by yesterday.
I have called the Department of Homeless Services and am awaiting a reply.
However, the city cannot force anyone off the street unless they are a danger to others. The loitering law only applies to people possessing a controlled substance or gambling. You also can’t loiter near a school — though of course Pace University is feet from this set-up. From DSS when we had a man who took over a bench in front of BMCC on Park Place in 2020:
“We do not tolerate encampments in our City. While the conditions here were not an encampment, the location has been cleared and we will continue to focus on this area to make sure that these unacceptable conditions do not regenerate. Our outreach teams canvass this area at least once daily, engaging individuals who may be homeless and encouraging them to accept services.”
The department always reminds me of the street homeless policy when I write in and this: “People who are living on the street are our neighbors: it is our collective responsibility to treat them with dignity and learn how we might support them.” It is sometimes hard to get there, but I certainly can appreciate that.
If you see someone who you believe to be experiencing unsheltered homelessness:
- report it to 311 and request outreach assistance.
- express empathy and demonstrate compassion.
- volunteer: www.nycservice.org/search/#s and search by interest using the category “Homelessness and Housing.”
- sign up for the HOPE Survey in January, the city’s annual point-in-time survey of New Yorkers sleeping unsheltered on the streets, which provides HOME-STAT outreach teams with valuable information they use in their year-round efforts
With the Department of Homeless Services’ Joint Command Center, its street homeless outreach program, teams of outreach staff help get people into shelters. It’s often not easy. They canvass Downtown areas five days a week, engaging homeless individuals to offer them services and help them come indoors. Most often the department knows people by name, since they stay in the area.
(I will also add that the Downtown Alliance, the business improvement district that operates largely in Fidi, in a partnership with Trinity Church has contracted with the Bowery Residents’ Committee to supplement work of the city’s Department of Homeless Services. Their district extends up Park Row just to Beekman.)
From DSS: “New Yorkers sleeping on the streets are our most uniquely challenging population to engage. With higher rates of mental health and substance use disorders, medical difficulties and disabilities, and with each individual finding his or her way to the street via different paths, it can take time to bring these individuals indoors from unsheltered environments (several months on average) and involves hundreds of contacts with outreach teams to build the trust and relationship that will result in ultimately accepting services.
“Facing complex, layered challenges, unsheltered individuals may be resistant to accepting services. And accepting outreach efforts is voluntary. In accordance with NYS Mental Hygiene Law, street homeless New Yorkers cannot be involuntarily removed from the streets unless they are posing a danger to themselves or others.”
All street homeless outreach teams have access to:
- licensed clinicians who work with clients on the streets, provide ongoing case management, and assess each individual for immediate risk/crisis during each encounter
- psychiatrists who perform psychiatric evaluations on the streets, as needed, helping understand and better meet the individual needs of each street homeless New Yorker
- substance use resources, including ability to immediately connect individuals to detox and other rehabilitation programs—and are trained in naloxone administration
As of September 2025, there were 3724 people confirmed to be experiencing unsheltered homelessness (1841 of them live in the subway) and known by DHS teams AND known in the city’s “by-name list” of street homeless individuals. (Just for the record, the city had more than 80,000 people in regular shelters as of March 2026.)
Back when I checked on this in 2020, the number of emergency ‘safe haven’ and ‘stabilization’ beds dedicated to serving the street homeless was up to 1,800, though there were more coming. As we know, we have one next to Peck Slip School and on in Fidi. But you can do the math.
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Here we go…just wait until nyc is covered in skid row type encampments that the nypd has zero power to remove. This is one way to make the city more affordable…let housing prices collapse because you don’t want your new apartment to come with a drug filled pod of human waste and filth on your doorstep. I lived in CA for many years, and I can tell you exactly how this story ends. People need to step up and voice their concerns directly and loudly. I have zero faith that the community board has any influence here, and the city council is comprised of deranged and delusional nut jobs, so also unlikely to see much from them.
I think you will like the New Confederacy more personally. It’s warmer and they are more prone to locking folks up. They even have (had?) an alligator surrounded prison. Alligators are non-union and work for food.
Of course anyone comparing NYC to Cali (let’s be real you are talking LA & SF and not where white folk live) must be informed on all the housing laws in these cities. How a vertical city doesn’t have camps must really surprise you. Literally one dude had a ‘camp’ and you are ready to call out the stormtroopers. Chill.
Truth – LA has a huge housing problem because it is not a vertical city. Single familiy and low rise buildings limit the housing stock. SF is a whole other shebang, a roller coaster of feast and famine which is too small and too expensive by far.
If you think LA has skid row bc of a housing shortage you’re as blind as you are ignorant.
Sounds like you should go live with the loonies in Cali. Or maybe this guy in his “camp”
I don’t believe allowing people to choose to sleep on the street, especially those with mental illness or substance abuse problems, is treating them with dignity (being worthy of honor, respect and intrinsic value). In addition, the City, by allowing encampments to seize sidewalks and other shared public property, is not treating the rest of the citizens with dignity.
He’s since built a new camp along the fence on the east side of the park, just past the driveway entrance to City Hall, where he’s currently lying sprawled out without shoes, appearing heavily drugged and barely conscious.
DSS says, “People who are living on the street are our neighbors: it is our collective responsibility to treat them with dignity and learn how we might support them.”
That is what calling 311 to request homeless services is doing — trying to get someone the help they need. Yet the city says it could take a week for someone to show up.
And what about that dog? The animal appears underfed, has shown aggressive behavior, and its vaccination status is unknown. Doesn’t supporting this man also mean ensuring the welfare of his animal and the safety of people walking nearby?
This isn’t about criminalizing homelessness or denying anyone their dignity. It’s about making sure someone who clearly appears to need help actually receives the assistance the city says he deserves, while also addressing legitimate concerns about animal welfare and public safety.
This is exactly the behavior that brought about Seattle’s downfall. Allowing encampments to completely take over the city by way of laws upheld by virtue-signalers is a sure-fire way to destroy a vibrant city. Ask Seattle, WA and Portland, OR about how well that worked out.
No way, Seattle fell? When did that happen. They really held out for quite a while. Was it the zombie hordes or the Russians abetted by Drumpf? Very sad state of affairs!
I completely can attest to that. We moved here from Seattle 2 years ago. My husband is a native and I lived there for 25 years. Build the home of our dreams downtown. Now it’s a complete dump, our home is worth nothing, and the City continues to fall apart. We have our fingers crossed that NYC works smarter!
Yup. Username checks out.
Walked by this morning, it’s no longer there
There was an “encamper” who set up near the Link kiosk on the east side of Church Street near Duane. Kept to him/herself under a tarpaulin. Was there for several days, then disappeared when new sidewalks were installed. Not seen since then.
Meanwhile everyone is perfectly fine with the dude that has been camped out for years on Reade Street just East of W. Broadway. If he were not white, everyone would be up in arms. And before anyone says I am making it about race, Yes – I am making it about race. Because it is. If that man was Black everyone would be up in arms and he would have been miraculously gone in 2 days or less. SMH. Think about how we react to things. Be better.
Sharon, the man living on Reade is a tragedy. I wish he would accept help in acquiring shelter, but he seems uninterested in that. The issue of the post and most of the comments is encampments and his encampment is very different from the one described in the post. He’s living on an alcove of a long closed restaurant and not blocking the sidewalk in any way with his belongings. It’s not my definition of living with dignity, but the implied social contract he seems to desire is we ignore him and he ignores us. He doesn’t impinge on the sidewalk in any way, unlike the encampment on Park Row did and that’s the difference, not race.
I agree with you. This affects our quality of life and raising our kids in the city. I was born and raised here. I don’t agree on allowing this to happen. We pay our bills, we go to work, we want a safe city. I don’t see it happening with the one in office.
It sickens me when there are a couple of homeless shelters right there. Even one literally steps away from Peckslip grade school which parents won in court and the mayor allowed anyway.
this is what you voted for this is what you get.
Vote accordingly. We will be like California, its coming. We see it.
to N: Agree with you completely. There was a black man named Lennie camped out on Chambers against the Medrite clinic wall (under the heat exhaust) for almost a year, living in a neat tunnel of cardboard boxes that he folded up in the morning and opened up at night. Kept his area clean. Neighbors continually brought or left him food, snacks and, in winter, warm clothes and covers. He thanked people but refused any other help, including offers to come into our lobbies to get warm and certainly offers to get him to a shelter.
That winter he deteriorated slowly until someone called either the police or an ambulance. I was told within the week that Lenny had died.
TriBeCa has always had homeless people, I worked in the area from the early 2000s to late 2010s. Actually its not far off from Downtown Brooklyn levels in terms of presence.