Mayor de Blasio’s plan to build 90 new homeless shelters around the city has encountered fierce opposition in several neighborhoods. Opponents in different communities point to different reasons for resisting new shelters. Some cite the question of ‘fair share.’
Overblown neighborhood fears create a political environment in which local leaders face risks for supporting a sensible shelter policy. In the middle, but rarely heard amid the uproar, are everyday New Yorkers caught in a crisis.
For senior citizens and the disabled, life in the shelters—and the effort to exit to a permanent home—bring unique challenges.
Giselle Routhier, policy director at the Coalition for the Homeless, talks about the latest shelter numbers, the highlights and low points of Mayor de Blasio’s record on homelessness and the potentially harmful role the state and feds could soon play.
A stint volunteering on the annual HOPE tally of the street homeless ‘made me stop thinking about homelessness as one big crisis and forced me instead to see what it really is: 70,000 individual crises.’
A Bronx resident gives a tour of Jerome Avenue and gives his take on the city’s looming rezoning proposal.
Gov. Cuomo and editorial writers often chide the city about doing more to get street homeless people into shelters. A few nights with one of New York’s street outreach teams reveals the issue is more complex than the slogans suggest.
The mayor unlocked a door between homeless shelters and public housing that his predecessor had closed. Some advocates want de Blasio to open it event wider.
‘I share my story so that his death will not be in vain.’
In total, fifteen Democrats and one Republican attended the event, which included some pointed back-and-forth.
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