It’s a pro-phylactic fiasco!
A nonprofit that rakes in tens of millions in taxpayer dough was accused of fueling sex trafficking in the city’s notorious “Market of Sweethearts” by handing out condoms right outside of brothels.
Locals spotted an AIDS Center of Queens County van parked outside a residential block on 41st Avenue and fumed as workers handed out condoms to prostitutes coming in and out of the sleazy joints along the troubled Roosevelt Avenue corridor.
“Residents call us every day about crime, drugs, brothels, and street walkers,” said Rosa Sanchez, a leader of the neighborhood group the Restore Roosevelt Avenue Coalition.
“Instead of more enforcement, public money is being used to supply free condoms to the same people turning tricks on our residential blocks and trespassing in building lobbies,” Sanchez said. “There are already condoms in every pharmacy and bodega. This is lunacy.”
The spot where the activists were handing out prophylactics is the same location where the coalition held a protest on Oct. 10, calling for an end to the illicit sex dens.
“We were shocked to hear that a not for profit that is supposed to help the community uses tax dollars to support criminal activity, street prostitution in our residential neighborhood,” the coalition said in a statement to The Post.
The nonprofit has more than $40 million in active contracts — at least $34 million with the city and $10 million with the state — to provide supportive housing, prevent HIV and sexually transmitted diseases and adolescent pregnancy, and offer syringe exchange to drug abusers and other health care programs.
In December 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the allocation of $1 million in discretionary funding to four local nonprofits, including $250,000 to the group to provide support for human traffic survivors.
She also deployed New York state troopers in October 2024 to help the NYPD take control of the Market, a sleazy stretch of Jackson Heights overrun by crime and prostitutes.
In September of last year, the governor also announced she awarded $500,000 to the AIDS Center over five years to open a “youth safe spaces” program at 62-07 Woodside Ave. to address the evolving behavioral health needs of teens and young adults
But the revelation that the group is handing out condoms in an area that has been a hotbed of illicit sex and black market retail sells engineered by drug-peddling gangs has locals calling for an investigation.
Activists are also demanding that Hochul immediately withhold state funding from the group pending an investigation.
“You just can’t make this up. We need Troopers not condoms from the State,” former state Sen. and Democratic District Leader Hiram Monserrate said.
“We are holding rallies and marches trying to shut down brothels and a local nonprofit is distributing condoms to street walkers on 41 Avenue and Woodside Avenue,” Monserrate added. “Who approved of this? This should be investigated. The community deserves to know what the hell is happening.”
Neighbors were outraged.
“I thought it was a charity,” said Ellen, 44, who lives across the 41st Avenue site where sleazy Johns swarm and hookers congregate. “I didn’t know tax dollars were buying condoms and saying, `yeah! do that right here!’
“The only people that really matter in this situation, the message is, ‘keep it up,’” she said.
Mark Xi, 53, lifelong Woodside resident who works for fresh produce company, said it’s anything goes in the neighborhood because the politicians and prosecutors have decriminalized activities such as prostitution.
“So now it’s legal. It’s like the weed. If you ask people walking around smoking they’ll say weed is legal now. Weed isn’t legal, not like that,” Xi said.
“Or the needles,” he said. “You ask people about it now. They give out the needles and people think the drugs legal. No arrest, so it is legal, almost. At least that’s the message people get. It’s OK. It’s legal.”
Rosemary Lopez, the executive director of the nonprofit, defended the group’s work and said the van is a “mobile testing unit” with the guide of providing easily accessible sex health education and prevention tools for sexually transmitted diseases.
“We provide this service in neighborhoods all across Queens especially in communities like 11372 (Jackson Heights) community that have been identified as areas with a high risk of new STD diagnosis as shared by the Department of Health,” Lopez said.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration also defended the condom distribution.
Distributing condoms, including to people engaged in sex work, is a commonsense public health measure that helps prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, consistent with ACQC’s mission,” Sam Raskin, a spokesperson for Mamdani, said. “Making these resources accessible to people who need them is an effective public health service.”
The Post recently reported that scoring illegal sex along Queens’ Roosevelt Avenue has never been easier — as the number of hookers has multiplied and prostitution-related arrests have plunged by 60% along the seedy strip since Mamdani took office this year.
The Woodside Track is well-known for prostitution. The track runs through a residential area with 1-2 family homes and some small apartment buildings, from Fourth Street to 65th Street and includes Roosevelt Ave, 41st Avenue and Woodside Avenue.
Neighbors complain that some of the illegal sex workers walk around scantily dressed and at times half naked in front of various Houses of Worship.
The governor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.