Some Bronx residents did double-takes as they passed Roberto Clemente Plaza in the South Bronx on a recent afternoon and didn’t see the used needles and litter they were used to.
The plaza, part of a shopping district known as the Hub, has become a hangout for homeless New Yorkers and a hot spot for open-air drug use since it opened in 2018, according to locals. Mayor Eric Adams has promised a multiagency response to clean up the plaza and the Hub more broadly, which centers around the intersection of East 149th Street at Third, Willis and Melrose avenues.
While some local business owners and residents say the city’s efforts are long overdue, many are skeptical they will lead to long-term change, as opposed to just shuffling people around.
The plaza was cordoned off by the NYPD last week and cleared of trash and needles by the city’s sanitation department — leaving it pristine for a press conference Mayor Eric Adams held there Wednesday morning.
“We are not going to allow the people in the South Bronx to feel as though they have to live in substandard conditions,” Adams said, adding that residents deserve a commercial corridor that is “safe, clean and drug-free.”
The mayor, who is in a tough re-election battle, added a well-worn mantra from his 2021 campaign: “ Public safety is the prerequisite to our prosperity and we’re going to continue to make sure public safety is our North Star.”
Owners of stores adjacent to the plaza said conditions that deter customers — such as people fighting, nodding off, shoplifting or defecating in public — have improved since the plaza was shut down last week.
But Arik Turjman, who owns a clothing store nearby called Lola, said the mayor’s election-year cleanup comes too late. He’s closing shop after 12 years because he can no longer afford the rent. Turjman said the people who hang out in and around the plaza have deterred sales.
“Fighting and stealing, fighting and stealing, every day [an] issue, every day [a] problem,” Turjman said.
Those who frequented the plaza said they’ve since moved just a few blocks, or even a few feet, away.
City officials said the operation at the Hub — which involves the NYPD and the health, sanitation and homeless services departments — is bigger than just cleaning up the plaza, and involves an array of city services. So far, it appears to be largely centered around criminal enforcement.
Since mid-February, the operation at the Hub has yielded more than 1,000 arrests and more than 4,000 summonses, according to data from City Hall. The city has also distributed more than 100,000 pounds of food to local people in need.
Meanwhile, outreach workers with the Department of Homeless Services have had more than 1,000 interactions with people in the area but have made only 56 shelter placements, according to city data. City health workers engaged with 48 people, the same data said.
Pedro Suarez, executive director of the Third Avenue Business Improvement District, said he was encouraged by the attention the area is getting.
“Complex issues require multilayered responses, and that’s really what we’ve been asking for, and I’m glad to see that we’ve gotten this overwhelming response,” Suarez said. “This community just wants to be seen and heard and feel those changes.”
Moving the problem nearby
Michael Figueroa, who usually frequents Roberto Clemente Plaza, was hanging out at a median across the street Wednesday with others. He said he’d relocated there after the plaza was closed.
“All they’re doing is putting a Band-Aid on the situation ‘cause you see where everybody’s at now,” said Figueroa, who said his drug of choice is K2.
Figueroa pointed out people he knew from Roberto Clemente Plaza on nearby side streets and on the benches outside Patterson Playground, near P.S. 18 and a few blocks from the plaza.
Some homeless people in the area said they are staying in shelters but need somewhere to go during the day because they are told to leave during certain hours.
Hector, who asked that his last name be withheld to protect his privacy, said he is staying in a safe haven, a type of shelter that doesn’t have as many rules. But he still doesn’t want to be inside all day.
“I don’t like to be so shut in,” Hector said in Spanish outside Patterson Playground. “I’m anxious, I’m very anxious. I need to be walking around.”
Camille Varlack, the mayor’s chief of staff, said she’s already spoken to a local youth football coach who expressed concerns about drug users relocating from the plaza to the park.
“We’re finding our care teams, deploying them to that area so that we can try to encourage people to go inside and get the help that they need,” Varlack said.
Too much treatment?
Local nonprofits that have long provided drug treatment and harm reduction services in the area say little has changed for them and their regular outreach work continues.
During the news conference Adams said services for drug users are a key piece of the effort to “clean up” the Hub. But City Councilmember Rafael Salamanca Jr., who spoke after him, said the concentration of service providers in the area made it “set up to fail.”
“They need to start relocating some of these not-for-profits so that we can actually address the issue in this intersection,” Salamanca said.
Samaritan Daytop Village has a health center nearby that offers methadone, an opioid replacement medication, as well as other mental health, primary care and addiction services.
“ We have collaborated with every administration in the last five decades, particularly working on similar issues in the Hub,” said Alicia McFarlane, Samaritan Daytop Village’s chief program and legal officer. “ This epidemic has been decades in the making. It’s not something that we believe will be fixed overnight.”
She added, “This is an issue of poverty, right? This is an issue of lack. There’s housing instability, food insecurity. There are many social issues that create what’s going on now.”
Toni Smith, the director of the New York state chapter of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that advocates for drug policy reforms, said service providers help prevent overdose deaths and keep people safe, but, “There are limits to what services are going to accomplish.”
“At the core of it, there are an increased number of people who are unhoused and who don’t have sufficient options for where to be,” Smith said.
The city has two nonprofit-operated overdose prevention centers in Upper Manhattan that opened under the de Blasio administration. They provide supervised, indoor spaces for people to use illicit drugs, hang out and access other services.
But their tenuous legal footing, along with opposition from some residents and elected officials, has so far helped prevent additional centers from opening, including one that was planned for the Hub.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson said she supports the two overdose prevention centers operating in Manhattan, but wants to “pause” any new services for drug users in the Hub “ because it’s too much and we have to figure this out.”
She said she wants to speak with service providers and see if any of their work can be consolidated.
Siraj Bhaiyat, the owner of Plaza Discount, a store adjacent to Roberto Clemente Plaza, said business has already improved in the days since the plaza has been closed and he is optimistic about the city’s efforts.
Asked about Adams’ cleanup effort, Turjman, the owner of Lola, said he hopes the shop owner who takes his place will benefit.
“That’s beautiful,” he said of the newly clean and empty plaza. “I hope it’s going to stay like that.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
