A new Skid Row encampment popped up across the street from NYU dorms — with vagrants bragging that living on the streets of the Big Apple is “much better” under Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The 30-foot-long shantytown at East Ninth Street and Third Avenue sits just outside Ukrainian Village Park, with a long blue tarp covering office chairs, luggage and bicycles on the sidewalk, in plain sight of both passersby and the college students who live across the street, The Post has learned.
“Some people are nice, some people think we invade their space,” Raymond, 45, who lives in the shelter, said Monday. “I was in a Bowery shelter and they stole my stuff. I’d rather be outside.”
He said roughing it on the sidewalk is “much better” since Mamdani took office.
“The past mayor had the police and they just came through and took stuff,” Raymond said. “Now they ask if we are ok and need help.”
Unsightly homeless encampments have dotted the city over the past year, including a blocks-long shantytown near the Intrepid Museum on Manhattan’s West Side that went unchecked until The Post blew the whistle — with the city finally moving in to try to clear it out.
A filthy encampment also turned a stretch of the East Side under the FDR Drive into a trash heap, while an outdoor flophouse has overtaken the sidewalk in trendy Greenwich Village.
Mamdani’s policy for dealing with the encampments handcuffs cops, and instead sends city outreach workers to try to sweet talk and offer services to the vagrants — who often just move down the street.
After seven days, police and sanitation workers are sent in to remove the rubbish.
Raymond and his pal Dave, who were lounging near the NYU encampment on Sunday, said the hands-off policy makes living on the streets preferable over legit shelters, where theft and abuse is common.
“There are plenty of services out there if you want it,” said Dave, 31. “This is a choice. If you wanted to be inside, you could. I have friends who froze to death over the last two winters just because they wanted to be outside.”
He said he worked as a waiter on Long Island but ended up homeless after getting hooked on drugs.
“At night, you have the drunk NYU kids talking s–t,” he added. “You see both sides of it.”
NYPD cops responding to a 311 complaint showed up at the scene on Sunday, and told the sidewalk squatters to “condense and get rid of some stuff,” then left.
“It doesn’t look a lot different from Los Angeles,” one passerby said, referring to Skid Row.
