A group gathered on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Sunday to welcome hundreds of homeless to the neighborhood with supportive chalk messages — and a demonstration on how to revive a drug-overdose patient.
About 30 people congregated in what was billed as a counter to scores of locals who have griped about the city filling area hotels with vagrants — including convicted sex-offenders placed near a school playground — to the detriment of the community.
The group, some of them in Black Lives Matter t-shirts, assembled outside West 79th Street’s Lucerne Hotel, one of the three Upper West Side spots to which the city recently relocated the homeless to better ride out the coronavirus.
They used chalk to write welcoming messages on the sidewalk outside the hotel, while several kids brought in tow doodled alongside them.
Among the sentiments scrawled in eye-catching, pastel hues were: “Welcome to the neighborhood,” “Make America care again,” “UWS people over profits” and “We’re glad you’re here.”
Another, featuring an arrow pointing to the front door of the Lucerne, read, “Narcan here.”
One woman demonstrated for the group how to use the nasal spray to reverse an opioid overdose.
“Who wants to save a life today?” she asked.
Once she found a volunteer from among the crowd, she walked them through the steps of caring for an OD patient — advice that included withholding information from emergency responders.
“Call EMS. [But] don’t tell them it’s a drug overdose,” the instructor said. “They won’t come as quickly. Just tell them someone isn’t breathing.”
The scene played out as locals looked on in disbelief.
“I feel like we’re being accused of not being anti-racist enough,” said one West 78th Street resident who gave his name as John. “But the policies of the city have not been as thoughtful as they should be about overwhelming residential neighborhoods.”
Despite one chalk message reading “#YIMBY”— “Yes in my backyard” — most members of the group refused to reveal to a Post reporter how close they lived to the area, which residents say has become rife with drug-dealing, public urination and broad-daylight masturbation.
One of the few to open up said he lived on West 96th Street, some 17 blocks north.
After about 40 minutes, the group departed to Broadway and West 77th Street to spread the message to the Hotel Belleclaire, one of the other spots to which the city has steered the homeless.
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Group welcomes homeless to Upper West Side with demo treating OD patients - New York Post
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