IDs, coats, a microwave: the few items stored during NYC homeless encampment sweeps

WNYC News

A health insurance card, a 10-speed mountain bike, a blue men’s jacket and a microwave are among the few belongings stored by New York City officials this year after they cleared homeless people from street encampments.

The city is supposed to offer people the chance to store their personal items for 90 days. But a City Hall spokesperson said workers stored people’s belongings just 13 times between January and the end of May this year. The city would typically have conducted several hundred sweeps in that time.

“ That's a shocking number that should raise a lot of red flags,” said Dave Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless. “There are so many people that the city is sweeping.”

The Adams administration said it was still finalizing counts of how many sweeps it conducted from January to May of this year, which it must disclose quarterly as required under a new law. But over the same period in 2024, it conducted an average of 200 sweeps per month.

Gothamist obtained records through a Freedom of Information law request showing the list of items stored when city workers fill out a “cleanup site voucher” during a sweep.

Homeless advocates say the low number of vouchers underscores the fact that most people’s things are often thrown in the trash. They say it demonstrates how destabilizing sweeps are to homeless people who can lose identification cards, personal mementos, clothing and other items. It comes as the street homeless population increased to 4,100 last year and as more New Yorkers who aren’t migrants are entering the shelter system.

said, there is no dignity in living on the street and we have a moral obligation to help our fellow New Yorkers rather than walk by them and do nothing,” City Hall spokesperson William Fowler said. “In most cases, people choose to take their belongings with them and only leave behind what they do not wish to keep.”