New York Is Pushing Homeless People Off the Streets. Where Will They Go?

Cleanup crews are clearing encampments, but advocates say the sweeps just move people from one place to another and fail to address the housing crisis.

On a sweltering July afternoon, a homeless man named Melvin Douglas biked up to his sleeping spot beneath the High Line, the elevated, art-filled New York park overlooking the Hudson River, and found that a city cleanup crew had thrown away his possessions — again. The same thing had happened the day before. “Brand-new clothes, brand-new T-shirts, everything,” Mr. Douglas, 54, said as he shook his head at the bare sidewalk. “They took all my stuff, bro. No regard at all.” As the country’s most populous city strives to lure back tourists and office workers, it has undertaken an aggressive campaign to push homeless people off the streets of Manhattan.