Homeless Count Up -Thanks Liberals-
Apr 11, 2011 2 Comments ›› Angelia
WSJ
More New Yorkers were homeless during the last fiscal year than at any time since the Great Depression, according to a report Monday from advocates seeking to end homelessness.
The report blasted the Bloomberg administration for policies that it said contributed to the number of homeless people, while the mayor’s office faulted how the statistics were compiled.
According to the report from the Coalition for the Homeless, an “all-time record” 113,553 homeless people, including 42,888 children, slept in city shelters during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010, an 8% increase from the previous year and a 37% increase since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office in 2002.
On Feb. 28 of this year, the nightly census of homeless adults and children in the shelter system was 39,542, the highest point ever recorded, the report said.
Seth Diamond, commissioner of the city’s Department of Homeless Services, said the coalition unfairly compiled the statistics to paint the worst possible picture. For example, he cited statistics showing the average number of families in city shelters in March was 4% lower than the same month in 2010.
“It’s an unrealistic report that uses a faulty way of looking at the data,” Mr. Diamond said in an interview. “We’ve created a system that helps families go to work, and we have record numbers of families doing that.”
Mr. Diamond acknowledged that the mayor and his administration have failed to decrease the numbers of homeless New Yorkers to the extraordinary degree that the mayor pledged during his first term.
In June 2004, Mr. Bloomberg said his administration planned, by the end of 2009, to cut the size of the city’s homeless-shelter population and the number of homeless people on the streets by two-thirds. At the time, the mayor said he hoped to “make the condition of chronic homelessness effectively extinct in New York.”
Mr. Diamond said the mayor’s pledge had a “lot of positive effects” but, bottom line, “we didn’t get the reduction we would have liked.”
Mr. Bloomberg said on Monday that the city’s homeless shelter system is “infinitely better” than it was when he took office.
“It is much better run. It is much more respectful,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “And we have been very successful in moving people out of shelter into…permanent homes of their own.”
The coalition said city’s policies have led to more than twice as many formerly homeless families re-entering the shelter system each year. Mr. Diamond said he considers that statistic flawed because every year there’s a larger base of people who have had contact with the system.
Administration officials have warned that the number of people in city shelters may rise even higher in the coming year because state budget cuts have forced the Bloomberg administration to eliminate a program that moved people from shelters to permanent housing.
Patrick Markee, a senior policy analyst at the coalition, said the group stands by its report. “The numbers don’t lie,” he said. “More homelessness than ever, more New Yorkers experiencing homelessness than ever, if this is success, I’d hate to see what failure looks like.”
