The AirTrain terminal at JFK Airport has become a hotspot for the homeless, with aggressive vagrants panhandling weary travelers and taking over public bathrooms while Port Authority cops look the other way, The Post has learned.
Dozens of vagrants ducking the cold weather and shunning unstable conditions at city shelters are instead bedding down inside the busy terminal — making the vital hub a nightmare for travelers.
“I’ve been through this place a bunch of times in the last three years,” one traveler returning from a family trip to Florida with his fiancé, who asked to be identified only as Michael, said Monday morning. “This morning was definitely the worst.
“The second we came in the station, there was guys yelling, ‘Can you buy me something?’ All the cops did nothing while that guy followed us, asking us for money. The entire time, wouldn’t leave us alone. I told him I had no cash and he was telling me to take something out and pointing to ATMs.”
Public bathrooms are essentially off limits, others said, because the homeless hunker down in all of the stalls, while some vagrants were spotted snoozing on the floor as suitcase-lugging travelers stroll by.
“Yes, it’s a problem,” complained Arata, 69, who works at a newsstand at the terminal. “There are four of five homeless outside here every day. They confront customers. No, the police do not make them move.”
The AirTrain hub connects JFK terminals with Long Island Rail Road and city subway systems — a vital link for Big Apple flyers.
While frigid temperatures have recently driven many of the homeless into the terminal, the vagrants reportedly packed the station even on a 50-degree day earlier this month, according to the Daily Mail.
“I think the city should definitely do something,” Stony Brook University student Aishik Deb told the outlet.
But one homeless man, who identified himself as Griffin, 67, said the city shelter system is the culprit.
“The shelter is no good,” he said as he stood by two carts near the Sutphin Boulevard entrance Monday. “They pick you clean. You can’t even let your shoes dry without somebody taking them. Then you walk around in socks. Now you’re in trouble.
“This is all right,” he said of the terminal. “Don’t act the fool and it works out. They don’t bother anybody here. Getting too crowded now, though. Crazies up there. All night with the arguing and screaming, fighting in the bathroom.”
The chaotic scene underscores the magnitude of New York City’s homelessness crisis.
The Empire State had over 158,000 people without a permanent roof over their heads in 2024 — a 53% jump from the prior year — out of more than 771,000 homeless nationwide, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development said. That translates to about 20% of the nation’s unhoused.
HUD’s report cited pandemic-era eviction backlogs, a lack of affordable housing, rising rent prices, and the migrant crisis as factors driving New York’s homelessness rate to 81 people per 10,000 residents.
In New York City alone, there were 140,134 homeless people last year, up from 88,025 in 2023, according to Newsday, citing HUD data. More than 130,000 people slept in city shelters in October alone, with thousands more estimated to be living on the streets, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new hands-off approach to the problem isn’t helping, critics claim.
The Big Apple’s newly elected Democratic socialist mayor said last month before taking office that he would halt sweeps of homeless encampments across the five boroughs — and even announced after being sworn in that he would roll out 30 public toilets for the homeless.
One MTA employee at the AirTrain terminal quipped, “This is what I’m used to.”
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees JFK and the AirTrain, said in a statement that it works closely with the MTA and other partners to maintain safety and order for travelers and the surrounding community, but is not “immune from the conditions facing the unhoused throughout the region,” particularly during the winter.
“Port Authority Police Department personnel are assigned to the JFK AirTrain portion of the station at Jamaica 24/7 and seek to enforce Port Authority rules and applicable laws, which do not permit use of the station for non-transportation purposes,” the agency said.
“PAPD also conducts regular outreach in conjunction with service providers, including Urban Pathways, to offer assistance and connect unhoused individuals with shelter, social services, and medical or mental health care as appropriate.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.