Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday gave the order to dump the Hell’s Kitchen hoarder’s caravan of carts after The Post revealed her incredible, block-long collection of junk.
Officials huddled at City Hall to discuss Sonia Gonzalez’s street-clogging loads of boxes, bottles, cans and other items, and it was Hizzoner’s call to send a Sanitation crew to remove the eyesore, according to his spokeswoman, Karen Hinton.
“He agreed that we should do it,” she said.
Once de Blasio made the decision, Paul Visconti, assistant chief of cleaning operations at the Department of Sanitation, went to the scene along with reps from the Department of Homeless Services and Police Inspector John B. Hart, commanding officer of the Midtown North precinct.
“Take what you need and go,” Hart told Gonzalez as she tried to squirrel away as many items as she could.
“You aren’t listening, you son of a bitch!” fumed the Puerto Rico native.
Workers began tossing her junk at about 5:30 p.m. and finished 90 minutes later. When they were done, the epic stash — which included 20 grocery carts, 14 laundry carts, eight suitcases, two large crates and one dolly — was mostly gone. All she had left was a duffel bag, a small black trash bag and three laundry carts.
Hinton said Gonzalez’s possessions were obstructing the sidewalk and traffic, and she refused to go to a Safe Haven location, which the city has long been attempting to get her to do.
“Outreach teams have been working to build trust with this client and help bring her to shelter for years,” Hinton said. “She has been known to the city since 2009 and has for several years refused to engage with the outreach team, and she will tell them to leave her alone.”
Hinton said Gonzalez was allowed to keep only items that had some sort of medical, life-sustaining value.
The mayoral spokeswoman added that the city cannot detain Gonzalez unless she poses a threat to herself or others.
Meanwhile, Human Resources Administration Commissioner Steve Banks called it “a very troubling situation . . . We had trained professional staff out there this morning and afternoon working with this individual.
“It is incumbent upon all of us to let the outreach workers continue to do their work today. They had great success . . . in bringing additional people off the street.”
Additional reporting by Rich Calder