Today, the NYPD kicks off its quality of life crackdown
All right, as part of the pilot program, five city police precincts will directly address complaints about everything from drug use to panhandling
Fox 5's Arthur Chen is in the Bronx right now to let us know what's being done there. Arthur
Steve and Natasha, at the core of this are certain surveys that we follow, including from groups like the Citizens Budget Commission
They find that the number of New Yorkers who say their quality of life is decent has been plummeting and plummeting dramatically
Now, in order to address that, as of today, the city is deploying NYPD units that focus on quality of life infractions to different boroughs and different precincts
Now, here in this section of the Bronx, the Melrose section of the Bronx, where the 40th precinct station house is
we ourselves today have witnessed the problems that they are targeting, including homelessness, open drug use
e-bikes zooming on the curves and illegal parking and ghost plates. Now, this is one of the five
police precincts, as you mentioned. There is also a housing unit that's getting it. They're in
Puerto Rican, Queens, here in the Bronx, and also in Brooklyn. Now, over the past few months
this neighborhood, we've been up to it multiple times specifically for some of these things
including an open drug market that just two blocks west of where we stand right now reporting on rampant drug use out in the open and with children walking by we have addicts sprawled out on the street and on all hours during all hours of the day
Now we should point out, we've talked to a lot of people while we've been up here, and not a single person has told us that their quality of life is acceptable
They say this is a neighborhood in desperate need of help. But it's drugs that you haven't even heard of that people are doing
If you were to look straight down here, they have a whole heroin community where people are shooting up in broad daylight regular
Then if you go this way, it's people smoking crack. People smoking crack right in front of the building that I actually work at
But it's hard to come in every day to work, and you got to deal with removing people who are extremely intoxicated
You got to move them out of the areas to start, you know, to go into just work to make money
It's very hard to even have things like this happen. now here's the dynamic at work here while crime stats at the nypd show that crime is moving in
the right direction that is that it's going down the perception of new yorkers is that it's still
very unsafe and officials say in recognizing that they are deploying these quality of life units
hopefully by addressing some of these issues including panhandling homelessness drug addiction
that they can turn the tide on that perception that's the latest from here at the 40th precinct
station house in the Bronx. Arthur Chien, Bronx.com News. Natasha, back to you. All right, Arthur, thank you