A record number of homeless New Yorkers are forcing the city to rapidly open new shelters to house them. The Times reports that the 43,731 homeless people in the shelter system this week is an 18% increase from last year, and the city has opened five new shelters in the Bronx, and two more in Manhattan and Brooklyn respectively. The rise in homelessness coincides with the city cutting the Advantage program, which subsidized apartments for formerly homeless residents for two years provided they were employed.
“We are in a very difficult environment with a very successful program that ended very abruptly,” Seth Diamond, the commissioner of homeless services told the paper. The Advantage program was receiving funds from the state until it cut them off last year, causing the city to scrap the initiative.
The alternative is for the City to pay for the shelters, two of which are on the Upper West Side in buildings formerly used as illegal hotels. The City pays around $3,300 a month per apartment, with two or three people living in each unit.
Presumed mayoral candidate and Manhattan BP Scott Stringer didn't have any clear answer to the issue: “You still need to come to various constituencies to support a long-term policy to meet a need that is expanding. It’s easy to throw 400 people in a community without doing your homework.”
