Homeless New Yorkers languished outside in below-freezing weather Wednesday even as the death toll linked to the unbearable cold hit double-digits – with some claiming the Arctic blast still beats the city’s shelter system.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has been under pressure to up its efforts to get the homeless off the streets after 10 people were found dead during the recent cold snap — but Post reporters on Wednesday witnessed homeless individuals across the five boroughs defiantly staying out in the bone-chilling conditions.
Homeless man George Reefus, who’s been in the city since the end of 2022, said outside the Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer subway station that no outreach worker or cop has approached him recently – and he doesn’t care.
“They f–kin with us less and less. Last couple days? No. No cops. They don’t say s–t. Which is good! You know, I don’t want to be bothered by these people coming up to me asking me about no shelter,” the Missouri transplant explained.
“I know where the shelters are at. If I wanted people robbing me or trying to f–k me I’d be at the shelter. But I want to be left alone, safe, so I’m here. I go to warm up when I need to.”
He said he spends his time at King Manor Museum Park and inside the transit system when he needs to warm up.
“Nobody’s dying here,” Reefus said. “You ride the trains. It’s cold, but it is what it is.”
Navy vet Miguel Rodriguez, who was begging for cash outside the subway station, wasn’t surprised people were dying in the cold.
“This morning I almost got into a fight over food at the train station,” the 47-year-old recalled.
“This guy was trying to take my food saying it was his. Surviving gets harder the colder it is. It’s getting hard. The cold is pushing everybody.”
Ten people have been found dead outdoors since Saturday, with at least six of those victims previously in contact with the city shelters, Mamdani said. At least one victim, a 90-year-old woman with dementia, reportedly had an apartment and wandered outside in this weekend’s massive storm.
Seven of the dead are suspected of succumbing to hypothermia, though the medical examiner will determine their official causes of death.
AJ, a 27-year-old homeless man, said in Manhattan while outreach workers tried to get him to come indoors, he “prefer to do my own thing.”
“People would be surprised, it’s more problems going into the shelter sometimes,” he said at an encampment in the Flatiron District on 18th Street.
“Yeah they have come by. But, I rather be out here. I mean think about it, it’s not even as cold as it could be right now. It’s only going to get colder. You just have to learn to adapt.”
But Simon Martinez, 36, who has been on the streets for years, said this deep freeze was too much for him to handle as he sought refuge indoors in Queens this week.
“It’s cold, it’s cold,” he said. “I can’t stay out there.”
