BY JOANNA PURPICH | A beloved local homeless man is being targeted, residents said, after somebody took his possessions on Sept. 17 for the second time this year.
Katsuyuki — a 72-year-old homeless man who has lived on the street at Clarkson and Greenwich Sts. since March — said that he left his possessions unattended that morning when he went to collect bottles as part of his daily routine. He returned later that day to find his camp possessions gone.
Another homeless man who lives in a van on the Greenwich St. side of the same corner, Jimmy Tarangelo, said that he saw Department of Sanitation workers take Katsuyuki’s things.
“The outreach people came with the sanitation cops and they took some of his stuff out,” Tarangelo said. “He had to much stuff on the ground, he kept expanding. He’s got to stay with it.”
“They take everything,” Katsuyuki said, “clothes, blankets, everything.”
Among the missing items were a shopping cart filled with clothes and recyclables, eating utensils and other personal belongings.
Diane, a local resident who requested The Villager only use her first name, said she believes that the police target Katsuyuki. She pointed out two other homeless encampments on the same block that remained untouched.
“Why pick on a homeless man who does nothing to no one?” she said.
Department spokesperson Keith Millis said that the agency does not have a record of sanitation workers being in that area on Sept. 17. A police spokesperson also was unaware of any cleanup targeting homeless people’s possessions at Clarkson and Greenwich Sts. that day.
Katsuyuki moved to a desolate stretch of Clarkson St. between Washington and Greenwich Sts. in March shortly after experiencing a similar incident this past February when his encampment was at the corner of Greenwich and Barrows Sts. He now sleeps along the side of a parking garage that takes up most of the block.
Katsuyuki, a Japanese man, came to the U.S. in 1976. He has been homeless in the West Village for at least 10 years. In that time, he became a part of the community, residents said.
“He’s the nicest man on earth and all the neighbors around here love him,” Diane said. “He has nothing. What is the use of taking his stuff?”
When asked why Katsuyuki’s things were taken, Tarangelo speculated that Katsuyuki, who only speaks broken English, has trouble understanding instructions when the police tell him to clean up.
“He goes out in the day and he brings more stuff back,” Tarangelo said. “He puts flowerpots down, plants, makes it look like a garden. I guess you can’t have too much.”
When this reporter interviewed Katsuyuki, he had jugs of water on the ground next to his single cart, as well as a small pile of newspapers, including both The New York Times and a Japanese paper.
However, when the sanitation workers recently descended on his belongings, Katsuyuki had as many as three carts packed with items he collected off the street, according to Diane.
“Someone keeps calling the police,” said Andrea, a homeless woman who sleeps on Katsuyuki’s block. “I think they’re probably calling on us, too, but we put everything in our cart and push it away.”
The Department of Sanitation investigates and cleans up homeless settlements after police receive complaints from residents. The agency also notifies the Department of Homeless Services, a sanitation spokesperson said in an e-mail to The Villager last February, when the paper reported on the first incident with Katsuyuki.
“As with many of our street homeless, our outreach teams are working diligently to engage this individual and offer him services,” a D.H.S. spokesperson said in a statement.
However, the homeless are disproportionally affected when the city throws out their things, advocates say. Caseworkers lose touch with clients, who often lose personal identification, according to Picture the Homeless, an advocacy group that has recently spoken out against police attempts to disperse the homeless from Park Ave. and E. 125th St. in East Harlem.
Katsuyuki said his passport was among the items thrown out in February. But the sanitation spokesperson said the department did not find any of his personal belongings then.
Since the latest incident, Katsuyuki now takes his cart with him during the day. However, he continues to sleep on Clarkson St. He just wants to be left alone.
“No trouble,” he said. “Stay here.”
