The number of homeless squatters living at LaGuardia Airport has increased in the past year turning the place into a flophouse, where they sleep, eat and wash up, while competing with the passengers for space, according to Port Authority sources.
There are at least 50 homeless people who live inside Terminal B in the LaGuardia Airport, which they can get into without passing through security. Men and women have spread out on the floor and others curl up on chairs. Only a few are bunched together while others go solo and keep a distance from others.
"It has definitely increased - it's more noticeable on the overnight or midnight tours," a Port Authority source said.
According to the report of the New York Post, in the mornings, some of them leave and spend their time around town, but many others hang around 24/7, robbing food from vendors, and even washing themselves naked in bathroom sinks, passengers and airport employees say.
"They have taken over," said one worker in the food court. "You can't even use the bathroom. They take showers. They hang their clothes on the stalls. They are butt-naked. They think they are in their house."
"There ain't anywhere else for me to go that is warm and safe like here," said a 49-year-old man who has been living in the airport for a few months.
Squatters living in La Guardia Airport "have taken over," and passengers and employees are afraid to go near them.
Syracuse news said that these homeless people sometimes sleep on pieces of cardboard on the ground or in chairs. Airport staffs are reportedly afraid to disturb them. "Sometimes they sleep on the bathroom floor," one janitor told the Post. "I clean around them. I don't touch them. They might get mad, and I don't want any trouble."
These people say they are safer in the airport than at city shelters.
It was reported in 2014 that there were around 45 homeless people living in the airport every month.
