'I'm Doing My Workout,' Mayor Tells Homeless Woman Seeking Help

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN -- Mayor Bill de Blasio was stretched out in butterfly position at the Park Slope YMCA when a homeless woman asked him to provide more housing for people like her.

"I'm doing my workout," video shows de Blasio telling the 72-year-old woman before he stands up and walks away. "I can't do this now."

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Nathylin Flowers Adesegun was one of dozens of VOCAL-NY advocates who appeared at the Ninth Street Y Thursday to demand the mayor make 30,000 affordable housing units available to homeless New Yorkers.

“He made it clear that his morning workout was more important to him," Adesegun said. "Am I just supposed to stay homeless?”

Adesegun and fellow housing advocates argued the mayor's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program — which allows developers to construct larger buildings if a percentage of the units are affordably priced — has done little to help about 62,000 homeless New Yorkers who often cannot not meet steep income requirements.

As an example, a large batch of 'affordable' apartments that recently hit the housing market in Brooklyn Heights require applicants earn almost $200,000-a-year.

While the program has added more than 300,000 affordable housing units to the New York City, only 5 percent were designated for homeless New Yorkers, said Coalition for the Homeless policy director Giselle Routhier.

“Mayor de Blasio may love working out, but his plan for housing homeless New Yorkers is just weak," stated Routhier. "This is simply unacceptable and perpetuates the ‘Tale of Two Cities’ he vowed to fix."

She hopes de Blasio will increase the number to 10 percent and include 24,000 units that will be created through new construction.

A second video shows de Blasio passing by a circle of chanting protesters who stationed themselves outside the fitness center, where the mayor prefers to exercise despite his residence on the Upper East Side and a recent report of the staff's transphobic treatment of a member who was repeatedly kicked out of locker rooms.

Outside the gym, homeless New Yorkers and advocates held signs that read, “De Blasio To Homeless NYers: Stay Homeless,” and chanted the mayor's name as he stepped outside the gym, pulled a suit bag out of a black SUV, and disappeared back into the YMCA.

"We're not leaving," they chanted, "until he speaks."

De Blasio did not speak to the protesters and his press office did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Photos courtesy of YouTube