Mayor bill de Blasio said Friday that he wants in new York city has banned begging, but lamented the fact that panhandling is a constitutional right.
During his weekly appearance on the radio station WNYC, de Blasio said he’d hate to see beggars on the streets of the Big Apple, although he knows that there is no legal way to get rid of them.
«Sometimes we see people on the street, for whom begging is a way of earning money, although they really are not even homeless… I’d like it to be outside the law…», — said the mayor, while in Germany, where he went Thursday to speak out against the excesses of capitalism at the G-20 summit.
Under de Blasio, homelessness in new York skyrocketed: according to the latest reports, 40% more people were forced to live on the street. This figure increased to almost 3900 people, compared to 2800 last year.
One of the reasons for the increase in the number of homeless, the mayor calls an unusually good weather. However, he acknowledged that the problem exists and that we need to fight it. De Blasio, however, is not always agreed that the level of homelessness is steadily increasing. Previously, he said that the tabloids are exaggerating the seriousness of the situation.
The courts have ruled that people have constitutional right to beg in accordance with the First amendment. Thus, begging on the streets is legal, although it is possible to restrict in such locations as subway and parks.
