Metro

Vagrants living under scaffolding are turning Noho into Skid Row

An influx of vagrants is turning Noho into Skid Row, according to outraged residents and workers in the Manhattan neighborhood.

Homeless people have started camping out under the profusion of sidewalk sheds surrounding local construction projects, including two young women who sleep in a red-and-white tent they pitch each night near the corner of Lafayette and Great Jones streets.

Gaunt and grizzled men have laid down cardboard bedding on Broadway near Washington Place, and a man in stained clothing has been known to hang out on a discarded sofa on Broadway near Waverly Place.

“I get so upset. I spend $4,000 a month to live where I live, and this all started since [Mayor] de Blasio,’’ seethed a 30-year-old woman who lives in the neighborhood and gave her name as Jac.

Lamenting that the quality of life there “has absolutely disintegrated,” the resident said, “I have never in my life seen this city like this . . . It’s inconceivable.”

A former city official who works in the area agreed that the neighborhood has “taken a sudden turn for the worse” — and blamed the situation on a surge of “high-end” development that’s created shelter under the scaffolding.

The ex-official described recently seeing “a guy who was totally passed out” near the Eighth Street N/R subway station.

He said he called 911 after a friend of the unconscious man told him, “It’s all right, he’s been like that for hours” — and an emergency dispatcher noted: “Oh, yeah, we know those guys. They’re regulars.”

A construction worker at a site at the corner of Lafayette and Great Jones said the women who live in the tent stashed a large piece of foam nearby for use as cushioned flooring.

“They seem like two normal people who just don’t want to go to the shelters,” he said.

The women — wearing loose, ragged clothing and carrying large backpacks Monday — refused to comment to The Post.

“We’re fine. We prefer to be left alone,” one of them said.

The city Department of Homeless Services said in a statement, “Our street outreach team found no one there this afternoon and will continue to monitor the area this evening and in coming days . . . we offer services to street homeless in an attempt to bring them off the streets.”

With Kevin Fasick