Recently, the Chinatown community in Manhattan discovered that the homeless shelter at 61 Chrystie Street was secretly housing multiple sex offenders, including one who had committed a crime by sexually assaulting a 7-year-old girl. The shelter is located only about 243 feet away from the Hester Street playground, causing strong concerns among the local residents.
New York City Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa held a press conference outside the shelter on the 6th of July, criticizing the Adams administration for placing sex offenders in a shelter so close to a children’s playground without disclosing the information to the community. Sliwa emphasized that if the city government does not relocate these individuals by the end of the month, he will organize protests and demonstrations.
Sliwa pointed out that there are five registered sex offenders listed in the New York State sex offender registry residing in the shelter, with one of them having sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl. However, the city’s Department of Social Services and Homeless Services refused to provide any list or information to the community, leading residents to conduct their own investigation to verify the facts, criticizing the deliberate concealment by the city government.
“We have informed them that if these sex offenders are not removed from Chinatown by the end of the month, we will start demonstrating here, just like we did in the past against shelters on 86th Street and 25th Avenue in Brooklyn,” said Sliwa.
Sliwa emphasized that the shelter, which was supposed to be closed in 2022, had its contract extended by the city government without informing the community, spending millions of dollars to house single male homeless individuals and sex offenders from other areas. He criticized the deliberate concentration of shelters in Chinatown, Flushing, Bensonhurst, Sunset Park, and other communities with large Chinese and Asian populations, calling it “targeted unfair treatment.”
“These individuals are not residents of this community, they are neither Asian nor Chinese. This is harmful to the community, not helpful,” he said. If elected mayor, he will conduct a comprehensive review of all shelter residents’ backgrounds and require the public disclosure of residents’ identities and criminal records, with violators being ordered to cease operations.
Sliwa also criticized the incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and the lack of transparency and community communication in the city government, accusing the entire shelter system of being an “industry chasing public funds.” He vowed that if elected, he would terminate such arrangements and reform homeless shelter policies.