They\u2019re shooting up, and getting down.<\/p>\n
New York City\u2019s controversial, taxpayer-funded \u201csafe\u201d injection site<\/a> has reached a depraved new low \u2014 with addicts so zonked out they routinely have sex in broad daylight, often at the doorstep of neighbors forced to endure the X-rated free-for-all.<\/p>\n The Post witnessed the madness firsthand near OnPoint\u2019s East Harlem headquarters on a recent Wednesday afternoon, as a horndog pair were conjoined for fifteen long minutes \u2014 and kept going even as pedestrians awkwardly walked past.<\/p>\n This scene unfolded around 4:30pm on a recent Wednesday afternoon on East 126th, by the OnPoint center. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n \u201cThe guy was just doing his thing, just looking around, wasn\u2019t afraid of anything. I couldn\u2019t believe it. I just could not believe it,\u201d said one revolted eyewitness, who asked not to be identified.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guy finished, and he just starts zipping his pants and walking away. And the woman was still bent over wondering what was going on. And then after he got maybe three yards away, she said \u2018Hey, hey! That\u2019s it?\u2019 and he said, \u2018Come on!\u2019 and then she pulled up her pants and ran behind him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s disgusting,\u201d added neighbor Shkigale Baker, who lives across the street from where the raunchy scene took place.<\/p>\n The government-backed shooting\u00a0gallery<\/a> down the block \u2014 where addicts are given clean needles and other paraphernalia to snort, smoke or inject their drug of choice on site \u2014 opened in 2021, along with a second location in Washington Heights.<\/p>\n Neighbors say the drug use spills outside the walls of the East 126th center and onto the street. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n Since then, nonprofit OnPoint has hauled in a total of $16.4 million in taxpayer funds from the city\u2019s Department of Health, with more than half coming from the Big Apple\u2019s share of the opioid settlement funds<\/a> from the Sackler family, who developed OxyContin<\/a> \u2014 the drug responsible for causing the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n The nonprofit\u2019s annual budget has blown up from $2.6 million in 2021 to $17.4 million in 2024, according to tax filings.<\/p>\n But neighbors have gotten nothing but grief since the site opened \u2013 and told The Post things are only getting worse.<\/p>\n Baker hopes the center gets shut down. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n \u201cThey have sex in our yards, they defecate behind our cars. It\u2019s a mess,\u201d said Barker, 69, putting the blame squarely on OnPoint for poisoning the block.<\/p>\n Baker had a front row seat to a similar incident in June, on the sidewalk right in front her house.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a woman here, she laid her blanket out. I was sitting here thinking \u2018What is she doing?\u2019 Then she took off her pants, a guy came, and I\u2019m sitting here thinking \u2018What? I\u2019m getting my own porno show \u2013 are you kidding me?’\u201d<\/p>\n Pedestrians walked past as the NSFW act took place. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n \u201cThey just don\u2019t care,\u201d slammed sister Hallia Baker, who also lives in the house. \u201cIt\u2019s just been awful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWow, just in the open? that\u2019s a level of freedom \u2013 it\u2019s terrible don\u2019t get me wrong, but I\u2019m just thinking\u2026.my goodness,\u201d exclaimed another woman who lives on the block, in shock.<\/p>\n The things I\u2019ve seen just blows my mind,\u201d chimed in Michael Carden, a pipe fitter who works in the neighborhood. \u201cI mean, the hookers do anything for stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n A different location on the same block. Obtained by the New York Post<\/p>\n The city said 6,000 junkies consumed illegal drugs as many as 38,000 times at OnPoint\u2019s two sanctioned sites over the past year, and the nonprofit brags about having prevented 1,800 overdoses since its centers opened.<\/p>\n But critics argue those overdoses just happen outside their walls and on the streets instead.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re just delaying overdose deaths because they don\u2019t address the underlying pathological behavior, which is really injecting yourself with poison,\u201d said Charles Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.<\/p>\n Every day neighbors say they see people shoot up on East 126th Street. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n Neighbors say things have become out of control. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n Experts say the center is a beacon for drug use \u2013 and associated behaviors, such as public sex \u2013 to the neighborhoods.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is shocking behavior for people to have in their neighborhood. It\u2019s not shocking to law enforcement because this is the kind of behavior that we see in drug addled people,\u201d said National Police Association\u2019s Betsy Brantner Smith.<\/p>\n \u201cWith these injection centers, people go, they get high, and then they give in to their urges. They\u2019re going to engage in whatever behavior they feel because their inhibitions have been taken away and they don\u2019t really care about societal norms.\u201d<\/p>\n Neighbors say they\u2019ve repeatedly called 311 and 911 about the situation. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, I\u2019ve fought to shut down these centers that have brought crime and deteriorated residents\u2019 quality of life. Some are dangerously close to schools \u2014 including one directly across the street from a daycare,\u201d Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) told The Post.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping Attorney General Pam Bondi will take action to shutter these heroin shooting galleries once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n Fed up residents earlier this year begged the Trump administration<\/a> to close down OnPoint\u2019s supervised shooting sites, arguing they were in clear violation of federal law.<\/p>\n Passed out people line the streets near the safe injection site in East Harlem. J.C. Rice<\/p>\n They\u2019ve been operating in a legal gray area \u2013 permitted under city rules but not under state and federal laws.<\/p>\n