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HOMELESS ‘COPS’ WOOED

The city is looking for the few, the proud – the homeless.

The Department of Homeless Services is trying to recruit veterans in its shelter system to join its own police force of 380 male and female officers who patrol the facilities.

Considered peace officers because they do not have guns, the DHS cops wear badges and uniforms similar to those of the NYPD, carry handcuffs and have the power to arrest people.

But the recruitment effort is being eyed as suspicious among a dozen former service people and their lawyer, David Wims, who claim that the job offer may simply be a move to buy the vets’ silence over what they call illegal evictions and a controversial drug raid at the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence in Long Island City, Queens.

During the Sept. 3 drug raid at the 235-bed shelter, the vets claim, their personal belongings were damaged by DHS cops.

As for the evictions, “they transferred a bunch of us illegally, and they’re trying to make it up to us,” said Avery Fletcher, 52, a veteran.

The veterans, some of who are no longer at Borden Avenue, said hand-delivered recruitment fliers for peace-officer jobs started arriving two weeks ago.

DHS officials insisted that the idea was simply the brainchild of Michael Gagliardi, the deputy commissioner for Security Services and Emergency Operations, who thought of it during the Sept. 3 raid when he struck up a conversation with a job-hungry former Army Ranger.

Gagliardi was “impressed with his qualifications,” a DHS spokeswoman said in a written statement.

But Wims called the explanation “ridiculous.”

“This smells like CYA [cover your ass] to me,” he said.

The DHS refused to acknowledge that any veteran was moved out of the Borden shelter, but Wims says more than a dozen vets have signed on for a lawsuit he plans to file in Queens Housing Court today.

douglas.montero@nypost.com