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| Queens Chronicle/Cristina Schreil |
Struggling with a spike in the number of homeless coming into the city’s shelter system, Mayor de Blasio will open a new shelter in Queens on Monday to house struggling families.
The city’s first new shelter this year, at the site of the former Clarion Hotel in Elmhurst, will include 169 units and attempt to meet a 20% surge in demand.
In 2014, de Blasio opened a whopping 23 shelters, including 20 for families with kids. But summer brings high demand, and last week about 57,000 people a night were packed into shelters, creating a need for more space.
That is slightly down from the high in December 2014, when around 59,000 people were staying in shelters.
- If there are 2,000 less people staying in shelters, why do we need to open more of them?
- Why did DHS tell the Queens Chronicle in June that they had no plans to open a shelter at this location if they did?
11 comments:
Lying is what every poll and NYC agency does best. Are we surprised?
Same as when the DHS said the Pan Am was unsuitable two weeks before moving them in there.
not defending DHS, but there were 59,000 people in shelter in December, when shelters are at their max because of weather. In the summer, when shelters are at their lowest point because people sleep outside, it's only 2,000 people less. What happens when the temperatures start to drop?
There is a deep need for more shelters and aid for people who are forced out of their apartments by the rampant greed of real estate speculators. There also needs to be a better way to place shelters which is fair to communities, the people using shelters and the people working in them.
Maybe we need to have a report on the people behind those 57,000 homeless, information that can say much about the situation at hand. How many of the people actually lived in NYC before they became homeless (are we housing people from out of state looking for free ride), how long have they been homeless and why (are they chronic homeless for whatever reason and remember there are many other places to live in the USA where it is not extremely expensive), how many are chronic addicts, how many are actually working at some job, how many have been unemployed for a very long time, how many have some type of mental illness, how many are actual USA citizens.
This kind of information gives a much better picture than just saying we have 57,000 homeless, which pretty much means nothing.
The whole system in NYC is broken and not one leader in this city has stepped up to the plate to do the right thing for homeless people, the communities that are having shelters dumped into them and what are you doing to stop homelessness and get people back on their feet as opposed to basically just warehousing a large number of people and that is it.
Crappy, the reason they will give is that even at 57K the shelter system is strained, and they will point to the similarity of summer 2014 numbers ( http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/downloads/pdf/dashboard/dhs_data_dashboard_charts_fy_2014.pdf). As for the DHS official statement in June, they will commit to nothing before it's certain beyond a shadow of a doubt, otherwise they'll expose themselves to FOIL disclosure. I'm not saying I agree with any of this, but you should know by now how they operate: "no plans" is not "no". Only "We have confirmed in this expensive report that it's impossible" is the answer "no", and then only during the current administration.
Why? Because the DHS ALWAYS LIES.
http://www.qchron.com/opinion/editorial/that-deceptive-dhs/article_dbefad45-574a-5763-b042-ed9d8ff026a1.html?TNNoMobile
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/downloads/pdf/dailyreport.pdf
Counts are up from this time last year.
Let De Blasio take 'em in!
Gracie Mansion has a lot of underutilized front lawn.
Erect temporary shelters.
Maybe his First Lady and Dante can serve tea.
whats wrong with Arthur kill?
plenty of open land to build shelters on, and the city owns it!
a win win!
Elected officials need to enact laws to stop DHS from circumventing the law by using an "emergency" declaration to open shelters. An emergency declaration are for hurricanes, flooding, major fires, etc..,. not because an agency is disorganized, incompetent and non visionary. Additionally, DHS should not be allowed to continue to violating state and city laws as they are currently doing at the infamous Pan Am homeless shelter. Providing three meals a day is not complying with city law to provide a cooking facility in each unit.
That's a shocker...
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