Homeless people live in sedans, RVs, and other vehicles in LIC
Your living situation is tense.
Homeless people beat the high rents in Queens’ hippest neighborhood by living in their cars and RVs — including two men living the life of luxury in a run-down limousine.
In the shadow of luxury high-rise apartments, at least four vehicles are used as residences on an isolated five-block stretch of Queens Plaza South in Long Island City, The Post found this week.
Among them was a gray Lincoln Town Car Royale with cracked tinted windows, chipped paint from the roof, lots of dents and no license plates.
Inside the limousine, skull masks lie on tarpaulins and sheets, while outside the broken windows are adorned with duct tape, cardboard, and a blue blanket with an eagle and flowers.
For about a year, two men have made the limousine their home and are regularly seen sweeping across the area under the Queensboro Bridge — as if it were their porch, neighbors who live in the area say.
Local residents claim the duo also plugged into the city’s power grid to generate electricity by tapping into a nearby lamppost.
“The boys in the limousine [are] “You’re homeless and you feel awful,” said a 48-year-old man who works in the neighborhood. “But at the same time [the limo] takes three places. There has to be a better way to do it [them] be taken care of.”
The men refused to open the limo’s door when the Post knocked on Thursday.
The three other vehicles on the strip between 12th Street and Vernon Boulevard include two weathered RVs and a 1992 Dodge Suburban.
This section of Queens Plaza South does not have a parking policy that requires vehicles to rotate regularly.
“This is the landfill for New York City,” said Bernard Johnson, 58, who lives nearby. “It’s not safe there. You know who’s in there. It’s a crazy city. They can’t go to shelters or train stations, so they have to [got] these cars.”
Some residents said they repeatedly tried to have the vehicles towed — only to be told by the NYPD and other city officials there was nothing they could do because there were people inside.
By law, RVs in New York are not allowed to stay in the same lot for more than 24 hours.
“Parking spaces are scarce here anyway, and they take up a lot of space,” said one resident. “This is a disgrace to the Long Island City community which is experiencing record development.”
The average one-bedroom rent in LIC is $3,956 — more than any other Queens neighborhood, according to a June report MNS real estate.
The median LIC condo sold for an average of $989,677 in the second quarter of 2023 — down 6.3% year over year. according to a report by broker Ryan Serhant.
One of the RVs, a run-down but tech-savvy Denali, had five pots of flowering plants and herbs front and back and a gray Kalkhoff electric bike chained to the rear.
The female resident left a note on the side of the RV that read “thief” and showed photos of a man in a baseball cap who appeared to be stealing one of her plants.
“If anyone knows this person please let me know,” she wrote. “My cameras also record sound. So you can always ring the bell or look into one of the cameras. Thank you for your help!”
A Flair RV parked nearby is occupied by Shawki Mesiha, 55.
The Egyptian immigrant said he moved into his new apartment in 2020 at the start of the pandemic because he could no longer afford the $2,100-a-month rent he was paying for an apartment in nearby Corona, Queens.
Mesiha, who hauls food trucks to and from Manhattan, also said he was saving money to send his ailing mother, who is battling cancer, to Egypt.
“I have no choice but to live here,” he said.
Julian Garcia, a 28-year-old postman who lives in LIC, said he sympathizes with Mesiha and the others who live in their vehicles.
“The fact that they have to live in these cars because they don’t make enough to pay the rent is crazy,” he said. “I’m not surprised, because here there is minimum wage for many jobs. That’s not enough to live in New York City.”
Messages left in Mayor Eric Adams’ office were not returned.
Additional reporting by Georgia Worrell.
