The tricked-out tent city Mayor Adams set up for the Big Apple’s migrants is a veritable wonderland compared to the dingy, run-down accommodations in a homeless shelter just yards away, outraged residents revealed Wednesday.
“They’ve got Xboxes? Get the f–k outta here!” fumed Baran Hines, 36.
The Brooklyn native said he’s been living since late August in the HELP Meyer shelter on Randall’s Island in a high-rise that’s just 350 yards away and visible from the new tent city.
“The building I’m in is so f–king awful,” Hines said.
“The smell is awful on every floor. The bathrooms are terrible with piss everywhere and s–t everywhere. There are flies in the bathroom.
“The tents look five times better,” he added.
Hines said he sleeps on “a raggedy bed with a hard mattress” and won’t eat the food that’s served “because that s–t will kill you.”
“Once a month, if I recognize the food, I’ll eat it,” he said. “But you taste some meals and you don’t know what it is.”
By contrast, city officials on Tuesday showed off the tent city’s rows of gleaming cots with brand-new bedding still in the packaging.
Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol also raved about the three “culturally appropriate” meals of “South American fare” that will be served to the migrants, the first two of whom arrived Wednesday morning.
“The folks have already been providing food, which is great,” Iscol said Tuesday.
“Crews, including myself, have been eating it for the past couple of weeks.”
And while the migrants will get to relax on plush couches while watching an array of flat-screen TVs or playing video games in a lounge outfitted with ping-pong and foosball tables, photos shot by Hines inside HELP Meyer show a spartan TV room with molded, hard plastic chairs.
Another shelter resident, Ricardo Charles, 39, said the setup there led most people to avoid it.
“Nobody really goes into the TV room because there’s just one TV so you can’t really choose what you want to watch and the chairs are uncomfortable,” he said.
“Other than the TV room, the only place to sit is the cafeteria. You can sit on the benches in the cafeteria.”
Charles added, “I have back issues from the beds.”
“You can feel the springs in the mattress. The beds are uncomfortable,” he said.
Both men complained about frequently having to walk to the eighth-floor of the shelter because of problems with the elevators, which last year left a man trapped inside a malfunctioning car for as many as four nights until he was rescued by the FDNY.
“This guy sits in the elevator to push the button because the elevator is so delicate and breaks once a week or more,” Hines said
And while migrants in the tent city will have their clothes laundered and folded for them, Hines said shelter residents have to contend with washing machines that “are broken and need constant repair” as they cycle in and out of service.
HELP Meyer is run by HELP USA, a nonprofit organization that grew out of one founded by disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and was formerly chaired by his sister, Maria Cuomo Cole.
The city pays more than $5,300 a month each to house 200 single men in 95 dorm-style rooms at HELP Meyer.
The complaints from the shelter residents echo those of other homeless New Yorkers who’ve told The Post that migrants admitted to Manhattan’s Bellevue Men’s Shelter received preferential treatment there.
Shelter residents have also said that fights have erupted amid overcrowding and tensions between the two groups, with one resident warning last month, “It’s gonna blow up any day now.”
Adams has repeatedly denied that he was favoring the migrants.
During an Oct. 6 radio interview, Adams said, “I’m never going to take away the resources that are for those New Yorkers who are in need of services.
“We’re not doing that, and we should not have to pit against the migrants and non-migrants,” he added.
After declaring a state of emergency over the city’s migrant crisis the next day, Adams also said, “We are looking at how we can continue to make sure that we continue to be there for long-term New Yorkers.”
Neither City Hall nor HELP USA immediately responded to requests for comment.
Adams has been lying low since the tent city was completed, including by skipping Tuesday’s news conference there.
And on Wednesday, Hizzoner’s schedule included two public events at which City Hall said he wouldn’t answer questions from reporters.
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