Their housing situation is a stretch.
Homeless people are beating pricey rents in Queens’ hottest neighborhood by living out of their cars and RVs — including two men living the high life out of a beat-up limousine.
In the shadow of luxury high-rise apartments, at least four vehicles are being used as homes along an isolated five-block stretch of Queens Plaza South in Long Island City, The Post found this week.
Among them was a grey Lincoln Town Car Royale with busted-in tinted windows, paint stripped off its roof, many dents, and no license plates.
Inside the limo, skull masks sit atop tarps and sheets, while outside its broken windows are decorated with sheets of duct tape, cardboard, and a blue blanket sporting an eagle and flowers.
For roughly a year, two men have made the limo their home and are regularly spotted sweeping along the area, under the Queensboro Bridge — as if it was their front porch, according to homebound neighbors.
The duo has also been hooking into the city’s power grid for electricity by tapping into a nearby lamppost, residents claim.
“The guys in the limo [are] homeless and you feel terrible,” said one 48-year-old man who works in the neighborhood. “But at the same time, [the limo] is taking up three spots. There’s got to be a better way for [them] to be taken care of.”
The men refused to open the limo door when The Post knocked on it Thursday.
The three other vehicles on the strip between 12th Street to Vernon Boulevard include two weather-worn RVs and a 1992 Dodge Suburban.
This section of Queens Plaza South lacks parking regulations requiring vehicles to relocate routinely.
“This is the dumping spot for New York City,” said Bernard Johnson, 58, who lives nearby. “It’s not safe there. You know who’s in there. It’s crackhead city. They can’t go to shelters, train stations, so they [got] these cars.”
Some residents said they’ve repeatedly tried to get the vehicles towed — only to have the NYPD and other city agencies tell them they couldn’t do anything because people were inside.
By law, RVs can’t hog the same parking spots in NYC for more than 24 hours.
“Parking is already at a premium here, and they’re taking up a lot of spots,” fumed one resident. “This is a blight on the Long Island City community, which is experiencing record development.”
The average one-bedroom rental goes for $3,956 in LIC – more than any other neighborhood in Queens, according to a June report by MNS Real Estate.
The average LIC condo sold on average for $989,677 during the second quarter of 2023 – a 6.3% drop from the previous year, according to a report by broker Ryan Serhant.
One of the RVs, a beat-up but tech-savvy Denali, had five pots of flowering plants and herbs adorning its front and back, and a gray Kalkhoff electric bike chained to its rear.
Its female occupant left behind a note titled “THIEF” taped on the RV’s side, showing photos of a man wearing a baseball cap apparently stealing one of her plants.
“If anyone knows this person, please let me know,” she wrote. “My cameras record sound as well, so feel free to either ring the bell or talk looking 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 rolled into his new digs in 2020 at the start of the pandemic because he could no longer afford the $2,100-a-month rent he was paying on an apartment in nearby Corona, Queens.
Mesiha, who works transporting food carts to and from Manhattan, also said he’s saving money to send his ailing mother who fighting cancer overseas in Egypt.
“I have no choice but to live here,” he said.
Julian Garcia, a 28-year-old mailman who lives in LIC, said he sympathizes with Mesiha and the others living out of their vehicles.
“That they gotta live in those cars because they’re not making enough for rent is crazy,” he said. “I’m not surprised because a lot of work out here is minimum wage. That’s not enough to live on New York City.”
Messages left with Mayor Eric Adams’ office were not returned.
Additional reporting by Georgia Worrell.
