A Daily Dose of Depravity

Have you gotten your daily dose of depravity yet? If you live in certain Manhattan neighborhoods, you will certainly get it. And so will your children.

This means, to be more precise, that the problem with homelessness is not merely a problem for local businesses. It affects children who live in neighborhoods that are riddled with homeless encampments, with aggressive vagrants, with degenerate behaviors-- all of which damage children.

According to the New York Post, children in these neighborhoods are now going to therapy, because they cannot handle exposure to that much depravity.

New York City is not alone in being soft on crime, in refusing to hold criminals in jail, in refusing to police neighborhoods for quality of life crimes. Drug addiction, public drug use, public sexual activity, making the streets open air toilets-- none of it matters to those who are responsible for public order.

As always, the children are suffering. Since no one makes the point, it is worth emphasizing it:

New York City school kids are losing their minds over the zonked-out drug addicts and raving vagrants they encounter every day – and are flocking to therapists to find ways to cope with the stress, The Post has learned.

In neighborhoods such as Hell’s Kitchen “a lot” of kids are now in therapy, according to mom Katie Hamill, 43, whose 7-year-old daughter is being treated for anxiety.

“My daughter has seen everything from fornication, masturbation, defecation, urination, you name it, she has seen it. … consistently and constantly. She is in this constant state of panic,” said Hamill, who works in real estate.

The little girl gets upset when she sees “the dying people” — the junkies who look dead whom she thinks no one is helping, the mom said. And she sees far too much vile behavior from adults, including one addict trying to rip out his hair after getting high at a West 42nd Street playground.

“My kid asks me to move,” Hamill said. “We have considered leaving the city. It’s hard.”

A truly great city in a truly great country would never allow this to happen. New York City turns away and leaves dealing with it to the children. Keep in mind, the Democratic politicians who have a monopoly on power in the city care about children. They have already colluded with teachers’ unions in assuring that small children will suffer from learning deficits. Now, their inability to clean up the streets leaves children open to constant abuse, assault and harassment. Because, forcing a child to witness this depravity is a violation-- what else would you call it? 

The neighborhood is called Hell’s Kitchen. It exists in Midtown West. During the pandemic, the De Blasio administration sent homeless people to hotels in that neighborhood.

Our unenlightened leaders have contributed mightily to the problem:

Exacerbating the qualify-of-life decline is state bail reform, which has caused the release of scores of dangerous accused criminals, as well as the decriminalization of drug paraphernalia which prompted the NYPD to stop detaining junkies shooting up in public.

This is what enlightened leftist policies get you. 

By the numbers, this is how it looks:

Major crimes in all three precincts that cover Hell’s Kitchen are up this year, with the surge nearing 60 percent in Midtown North and South. Robberies are up 57% in Midtown South and 20% in Midtown North. There have been 10 murders so far this year in the three precincts, double the number during the same period in 2021.

And, that’s not all folks:

Christine Capolupo, 38, a stay-at-home mom who lives in Hell’s Kitchen, and her father, Alex Vado, called police Wednesday when they saw a vagrant asleep on a bench at the Ramon Aponte Playground on West 47th Street near Ninth Avenue.

“It’s terrible especially like this street, in this vicinity, it’s gotten so freaking bad,” Capolupo said. “It’s like in broad daylight you see them shooting up and crazy stuff. It wasn’t like that. It was pretty decent, the neighborhood. I don’t know what’s going on.”

The neighborhood’s current state of affairs is worse than the bad old days, said one lifelong resident and mom whose two daughters are also in therapy.

“My kid is like lunging and attached to me like she wants me to carry her and she is 8 years old. It’s not a way for anybody to live, especially kids,” said the stressed mama, who said her children don’t want to go outside.

The 43-year-old woman recalled, “a lot of acts of violence when grew I up here.”

“But it was murderers murdering each other. They weren’t attacking innocent people walking in the street – women, kids, elderly,” she said. “It felt safer then.”

Sure, bring back organized crime. They would never allow their own neighborhoods to deteriorate at this level.

Of course, the real solution, while awaiting a political revolution, is simply to leave. Those who are leaving Hell’s Kitchen are not rich. They are not the tax base, but still:

Some families are coping by picking up and leaving.

One study found that families with young kids led the flight from major US cities in the first two years of the pandemic.

Manhattan saw a 9.5% decline in children under 5 since 2019. Total New York City public school enrollment has dropped by 73,000 since the start of the pandemic.

Justin McShane, 38, who works in finance and development, left Hell’s Kitchen for New Jersey in February after a rent increase and the surge in violence and drug use in the neighborhood.

“There’s almost like a blissful ignorance within the leadership. It starts with the mayor obviously and no one wants to prosecute anybody. So, you know, everyone feels like they can just run amok without any disincentives,” McShane said.

And, always remember, the politicians in charge are chock full of empathy for children. They are strongly opposed to all forms of child abuse, even the sexualization of children. Unfortunately, their radical leftist politics, what with their insistence on grooming kindergartners, must go hand in hand with their rendering the streets unsafe, at any speed.