Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Homelessness

Homelessness

  • Our Patients Need Medically-Appropriate Shelter, During Coronavirus Outbreak and Always

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    (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    What happens when a historic pandemic collides with an unprecedented housing crisis? The inextricable link between housing and health is now more apparent than ever as doctors both care for critically ill patients with the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, and simultaneously scramble to make plans for the most vulnerable in our society who simply have no place to isolate.

    Only a few weeks into this crisis, we have seen numerous patients recuperating from COVID-19 who linger for days in the hospital because of their need for

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  • New York City to Share Homeless Shelter Data with U.S. Census Bureau in Unprecedented Agreement

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    Efforts continue to get every New Yorker counted in 2020 Census (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    New York City has reached a first-of-its kind agreement with the U.S. Census Bureau to transfer data on the city’s sheltered homeless population in a way that is intended to negate the need for census enumerators to perform their own separate count.

    Through the agreement, which was described to Gotham Gazette by an official from the city’s census office, the city will compile data on the roughly 60,000 people expected to be sheltered at around 650 sites in

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  • Health and Housing are Inextricably Linked; My Patients Need Home Stability Support

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    A push for a new state homelessness-housing voucher continues (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    As a doctor in the hospital, I bear witness to some of the most severe downstream effects of health inequity in our community. In my field, I care for any person who presents to the emergency room and is then deemed too sick to be discharged. Through years of clinical service, I have come to appreciate housing as the most vital component of a person’s ability to stay well.

    More recently, research surrounding individuals experiencing homelessness has

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  • Do Homeless Lives Matter to the De Blasio Administration and City Council?

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    (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    Imagine the reaction if the number of deaths within a particular neighborhood or among a certain ethnic, racial, or religious group had gone up by 40% in one year! There would be demonstrations on the steps of City Hall and the Mayor would be forced to respond.

    Unfortunately, that is what has happened among the city's homeless population. Between July 2018 and June of 2019, 404 people considered homeless in New York City died, according to ...

  • Corey Johnson: Master Planner?

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    City Council Speaker Corey Johnson (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    New York City doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for the future. There is no single guiding document that determines how housing will be built over the next decade, for example, overlaid with a strategy for meeting infrastructure needs like transit options and school seats, with unifying visions for social services and economic development. But such planning should exist, according to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is making several moves toward the type of planning that has mostly

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: The City Council's Plan to Reduce Homelessness

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    Council Member Steve Levin & Speaker Corey Johnson (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    February 12, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: The City Council's Plan to Reduce Homelessness

    ste levin wbaiCity Council Member Stephen Levin joined the show to discuss the City Council's new report and plan to reduce homelessness in New York City. Levin, chair of the Council committee with oversight of

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  • Johnson Unveils ‘Holistic, Long-Term’ Plan to Tackle City Homelessness Crisis

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    (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Thursday released a plan that he said takes a “smarter, more strategic, holistic, long-term” approach to addressing the city’s homelessness crisis, seeking to end what he called the siloed policies of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration and calling for more funding from the city and state to both help homeless individuals find permanent housing and prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.

    “This is, without exaggeration, a humanitarian crisis in the wealthiest city in

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  • Following Our Faith, Marshaling Our Resources to Solve Homelessness in New York City

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    It was early evening on a street corner on the Upper West Side. A young woman rushed up to me and asked for money so she could buy some dinner.  She was flushed, out of breath, and pregnant. Stories like this are a frequent occurrence for any New Yorker who walks the streets and takes the subways.  

    This young woman said she’d had a fight with her boyfriend and he’d kicked her out of their apartment. She had just been placed in a shelter and didn’t have supplies or food. Despite my desire, knowledge and

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  • 6 Keys to Reduce the Number of People Sleeping on the Streets and in the Subways

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    The city’s homelessness crisis is well-documented and deeply troubling, including far too many people sleeping on the streets and in the subways. If it seems like there are more and more people in those situations, it is because there are: the estimated number jumped 23% from 2018 to 2019, based on the one-night winter HOPE Count, to about 3,500 in total.

    The city’s efforts to reduce the street population have mostly failed. Nothing emphasizes this failure more than the recent murder of four

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  • Many Major Challenges, Decisions for De Blasio in 2020

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    (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photo Office)


    As Mayor Bill de Blasio enters his seventh year in office, on the heels of a failed presidential bid and at a time when his political clout appears at its nadir, he faces many major challenges and big decisions ahead.

    2020, the next-to-last year of his second and final term, begins with a focus on public safety, including recent spikes in anti-Semitic hate crimes, murders, and byciclist fatalities, as well as how the city is adjusting to new state-mandated bail reforms that the mayor has

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  • Christine Quinn on Solving Homelessness: 'This is Not Brain Surgery'

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    Christine Quinn (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    Christine Quinn is frustrated. Quinn, formerly the Speaker of the New York City Council and currently the CEO of Win, a nonprofit that is the largest provider of shelter and permanent supportive housing to families in New York, believes much more can be done to support homeless New Yorkers.

    The city continues to grapple with an immense homelessness crisis, with more than 60,000 people in city shelters each night, roughly 3,000 people living on the streets or in the subways, and several

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  • Two Troubling Trends Collide in City Homeless Outsourcing

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Last week the City of Newark sued New York City over New York’s placement of more than a thousand homeless individuals and families in Newark, through the city’s Special One Time Assistance (SOTA) program. Under the program, New York City employed private brokers to find homes for the families in New Jersey and elsewhere, and, without checking to see if the homes were habitable, paid a full year’s rent in advance and left families to live there. The result was thousands of families sent out of the city into homes that were

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  • A Well-Meaning But Misguided Housing Proposal

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    Council Member Salamanca (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    A year ago, a homeless woman confronted Mayor de Blasio during his gym workout in Park Slope to ask why the city doesn’t set aside more apartments for homeless people. The incident and a video of it in which the mayor refused to talk with the woman, Nathylin Flowers Adesegun, were widely ...

  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Christine Quinn on Homelessness, Making Government Work, & Her Future

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    (photo: @WINNYC_ORG)


    November 13, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Christine Quinn on Homelessness, Making Government Work, & Her Future

    christine quinn 150pxFormer City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, now the CEO of Win, one of the city's largest homeless shelter providers, joined the show to discuss the city's homelessness crisis, Win's work, broader government issues,

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  • Facts Don't Support Expanding the Size of the MTA Police Force

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    (photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Patrick Cashin)


    MTA Chair and CEO Pat Foye says the transit authority’s operating budget is in “dire” condition and independent budget watchdogs are alarmed its deficit is growing to unmanageable levels. Citizens Budget Commission estimates the MTA will be $740 million in the red in 2023 -- and this does not include new debt payments for the new, massive $51.5+ billion 2020-2024 capital plan. Separately, NYPD data shows subway crime is down 3% from

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  • A New Way to Tackle the City’s Homelessness Crisis

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    (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)


    It’s well-known that homelessness in New York City continues at crisis levels. Roughly 60,000 men, women, and children -- near record-highs, down just slightly from recent years -- are sleeping in the city's homeless shelter system every night. Another estimated 3,500 poor souls are living on the streets and subways mostly because they fear the crime that occurs in the city shelters.

    It has gotten so bad in the subway system, which according to the MTA has seen a 23% increase in homeless people present, that Governor Cuomo has

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  • Questioning Jails Plan, Advocates Seek ‘New Deal’ to Address Homelessness

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    Friday's press conference (photo: Vocal New York)


    A coalition of housing rights advocates and elected officials is seeking a “new deal” for homeless people living in New York City, as one activist put it at a rally on Friday.

    Members of the coalition gathered in front of City Hall to point out what they believe to be shortcomings of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing agenda and the dangers of celebrating too early the plan to shutter the Rikers Island jails. The jails are a cornerstone of the city’s criminal justice system that the advocates say

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  • To End the Homelessness Crisis It’s Time to Refocus the City’s Housing Plan - Here’s How

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    The authors and others at a rally (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    More than 61,000 men, women, and children will sleep in New York City shelters tonight, and this historic homelessness crisis will continue to devastate the lives of even more people unless Mayor de Blasio embraces the common sense plans that we have put forward from a City Council office and the Coalition for the Homeless, respectively.

    The record number of homeless New Yorkers will continue to reach new highs every year, according to the latest report from the Coalition. In stark contrast to Mayor

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: The City's Fight Against Homelessness

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    Steve Banks, right, with the Mayor and First Lady (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    September 18, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: The City's Fight Against Homelessness

    dss commissioner banks wbai 150Steve Banks, Commissioner of the Department of Social Services and Mayor de Blasio's homelessness czar, joined the show to discuss the city's fight against

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  • Addressing the Growing Problem of Senior Homelessness

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    (photo: WSFSSH)


    The conversation around affordable housing in New York largely focuses on ensuring that working people can continue to live here.  

    Bus drivers, healthcare workers, elementary school teachers -- too few of the people who fulfill some of our city’s key services can afford a market-rate one-bedroom apartment within city limits. It’s inarguably a crisis that threatens the fundamental quality of our city, as well as its continued economic growth.

    But another tidal wave is growing that deserves equal attention: as baby boomers

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  • As Cuomo and Heastie Trade Comments on Anti-Poverty Efforts, a Closer Look at What They've Done

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    Speaker Heastie & Governor Cuomo (photo: the governor's office)


    Despite previously lauding the 2019 state legislative session as the “most productive session in modern political history,” Governor Andrew Cuomo went on to call the session “not progressive enough,” citing a need “to do more on poverty.”

    At his celebratory, mostly upbeat end-of-session press conference on June 21, Cuomo was asked about what did not get done, and cited three issues he said he would work on next year: legalizing adult-use marijuana and paid

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  • Advocates See Irony in Cuomo's Thinly-Veiled Shots at De Blasio Over City Problems

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    Cuomo & de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Governor Andrew Cuomo believes in action, rather than rhetoric, and rarely shies away from criticizing those who he believes fail to live up to their promises, including his fellow Democrats. He’s also appeared particularly irritated by the ascendent progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which has challenged him, unfairly he argues, and offers what he says are pie-in-the-sky talking points over the types of achievable results he’s delivered.

    Cuomo brought the

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  • Social Workers for Homeless Kids is Not the Place to Skimp

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    (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    Last year, nearly 38,000 New York City students arrived in the classroom having woken up in a shelter. That’s more students than the total enrollment of the Buffalo public schools, the next largest school district in the state.

    Many had been exposed to domestic violence, one of the driving forces of homelessness. Many were forced to transfer schools mid-year, some multiple times, after being placed in a shelter in an entirely different borough. Some were in placements with no kitchen or laundry machine. More than half missed

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  • Where We Work, ThriveNYC is Helping Families and Getting Homeless Children to School

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    Chirlane McCray (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Questions have been raised recently about the cost and achievements of the ThriveNYC mental health initiative. This is no surprise: big, high-profile, efforts like ThriveNYC have always been susceptible to such criticisms.

    But ThriveNYC is just the unifying umbrella of more than 40 different pilot programs attempting to deliver innovative mental health interventions across multiple city agencies. Organizing these disparate efforts into one initiative helped get resources for

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  • Advocates Give De Blasio and Cuomo Failing Grades on Addressing Homelessness

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    (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    Mayor Bill de Blasio was defensive on Thursday when asked about a report, released earlier this week by the Coalition for the Homeless, that criticized him for not doing enough to address the city’s homelessness crisis.

    While he has acknowledged his administration’s struggles addressing the crisis, the mayor has devoted significant additional resources to fighting homelessness and though the number of people in shelter has increased under his watch, he has made some progress in breaking the trajectory of the

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