If you faulted Mayor de Blasio last summer for being ignorant of the spike in homelessness in the city, you gave him too much credit. Turns out Hizzoner was well aware of the crisis — even as he denied it.
In fact, he’d been holding weekly emergency meetings on the issue all along, news reports this week said. Even while pooh-poohing the problem and denouncing “hype” from The Post, which ran stories and photos that documented the growing chaos.
“The media has put a lot of attention on this issue,” he said back then. He asked if the focus was “proportionate to what’s happening,” insisting that “reality is a little different” than the news reports.
It wasn’t — as he later admitted: In 2014, city homelessness set a record, at nearly 60,000. In August, 311 homeless complaints reportedly had spiked 60 percent under de Blasio.
And The Post published hard evidence, including a front-page photo of one vagrant urinating right in the middle of the street.
Now we know de Blasio himself was aware of the problem. An aide, Karen Hinton, admitted that meetings began in June, after the city saw the numbers heading north — though she says officials were focusing more on those in shelters than on the streets.
“No one can deny what every New Yorker saw with their own eyes,” says George McDonald of the Doe Fund, which works with the homeless. “It’s hard to believe the mayor was oblivious to all of that.”
The good news: De Blasio finally came clean last month, admitting “there is both a perception and reality problem.”
With winter coming, it’s fair to expect some improvement on the streets. But warm weather will return.
Will de Blasio be ready for any problems it brings — or again deny that problems exist?