The de Blasio administration and the City Council failed to set aside enough funds for the homeless shelter capacity they would need this year and are now paying for their optimism, officials revealed this week.
Early this year, the administration believed that its systemic, long-term approach to homelessness would reduce the shelter population by winter.
They were wrong. The census just again topped 12,000 families, where it was at the same time last year.
The City Council voted Wednesday to tack $137.5 million on to the Department of Homeless Services budget for shelters, $88 million of which will come from city taxpayers. That represents an almost 17% increase in the shelter budget for this year.
“These are predominantly for adult shelter and family shelter re-estimates," outgoing Homeless Services Commissioner Gilbert Taylor said at a City Council hearing last week.
The gap resulted from an incorrect assumption by the administration and the council that the shelter population would trend downward by the end of the year thanks to new subsidy and homelessness-prevention programs, according to council staff. While mid-year budget adjustments are normal, this year’s is remarkable, one aide said.
A mayoral spokeswoman said the funding adjustment was meant to cover population and cost increases since fiscal year 2014, upon which this fiscal year’s estimates were based.
15 comments:
Why all of a sudden there is this big homeless problem/situation ?
What is different this year than let's say 3 years ago ?
Guess we know why Taylor "stepped down" the other day.
For one thing, three years ago, we had John Liu as Comptroller, and he wasn't scrutinizing/stopping registration of homeless shelter contracts the way that Scott Stringer is. So the vendors were getting paid for three-quarter housing, people were shuffling off the streets, and life went on. Now that Stringer is delaying/stopping things, citing "unsafe conditions" at the shelters and other issues, the vendors can't operate...so more people are back on the streets.
Why doesn't the city institute a residency law? Homeless come from other states because of our generous benefits -- food stamps, free cell phones, health benefits at city hospitals, homeless hotels, education for their children. However, once they get here, they shun the shelters in favor of safer venues. Have a mandatory residency law and watch them go back to their home states.
Do not forget the Syrian refugees...
There's also the bullshit "Mandate" to "Shelter & Feed the homeless" that no one seems to be able to substantiate. The imaginary "Mandate" encourages homeless to migrate here from anywhere on the planet for a free ride. If you think it's bad now, wait until the weather improves come spring/summer. We're about to be inundated...
Stringer is just bringing attention to the horrific conditions at the "non profit" run homeless shelters. The shelters are so bad that some homeless choose to stay on the street. Meanwhile the boards of these politically connected non profits line their pockets with fat City contracts.
The administration keeps waving them into our sanctuary city. Now we are all F***ed. And the City Council speaker is more concerned about her Puerto Rico homeland than on NYC.
The homeless situation is at least as bad as it was in the 1970s. Penn Station and its restrooms have been taken over by the homeless, and all those law enforcement people ignore them. There are apparently homelss people all over midtown and uptown, from 5th Ave to 8th. DeBlasio and his administration are incompetent and barely ethical
"There's also the bullshit "Mandate" to "Shelter & Feed the homeless" that no one seems to be able to substantiate"... Look up Callahan v. Carey. The State Constitution would have to changed, not gonna happen
"... and all those law enforcement people ignore them."
Hello Ms. Tsouris. Law enforcement is a creature of the political establishment. In the NYPD, the highest civil service rank is Captain and all ranks above it from Deputy Inspector through Chief are appointed ranks by the Police Commissioner who himself serves at the pleasure of the Mayor. They do as the Mayor tells them and enforce or ignore laws according to his wishes.
The homeless problem here is not really so much of incompetence, lack of mayoral oversight on law enforcement, but more of a plan, a feature rather than a bug: "Them's Democrats a-borning!" after all.
Besides, all the "right" people can make some bucks off of this. A win-win solution for our glorious rulers.
Same with this "sanctuary city" nonsense bringing in illegal aliens.
Middle class and working class people are starting to ask too many impertinent questions of their godling rulers. And they simply can't be trusted to do as they're told by their betters or vote the "correct" way anymore.Even the tried and true tactics of social justice warriors pointing and shrieking at badthinkerz is starting to lose its effectiveness. Something must be done!
At least in the paranoid minds of the Rulers who cannot tolerate the least dissent. The reality of the situation may be different but leftists live in their own little world. Complete with their own dogmas and unrealistic stereotypes of those whom they choose to call enemies to keep them company.
"There's also the bullshit "Mandate" to "Shelter & Feed the homeless" that no one seems to be able to substantiate"... Look up Callahan v. Carey. The State Constitution would have to changed, not gonna happen"
That's what happens when the State is transformed from a mere governing body of adult citizens into a secular goddess/mother figure which not only rulers over but cares for its dependent children inhabitants and supported by the labor of its serfs.
The insane part is how so many people in the past 80 years gave their full-throated support to such a thinly veiled power grab by electeds in return for de-facto slavery- all wrapped up in warm and fuzzy pretty lies spun out by slimy, credentialed punks the likes of Jonathan Gruber and that ilk.
So now we have turned our elected representatives into little tin gods and can't figure out why the godlings are not at all responsive to the electorate and treat them with such utter contempt. The Master does not take counsel from the slave, the adult does not always indulge the child and the gods laugh at the foibles of mere mortals. They've got bigger fish to fry, sparky.
The really sick part is how so many people, humanoid rabbits, today would scream in rage and terror at the mere suggestion that the nanny state just be scaled back a bit let alone completely dismantled. They simply can't imagine life without big mommy gubbermint and sense the cold hand of Darwin tapping them on the shoulder.
Those who object to this state of affairs (obviously myself included) are too few to change anything. Thus this forum to some extent exists only to allow the faithful a place to bitch and vent to feel better about themselves before going back out to support the status quo. And the godlings merely laugh at the foolish mortals.
Don Cavaioli
Fuck this shit im moving to long island. See ya !!
Like America's prisoners, the homeless in N.Y. and other cities around the nation and the world that have been infected by the looming abscesses and tumors of hyper-development and gentrification, have become commodities to buy and sell along the hipsters and buildings that have displaced and disenfranchised them. That tool that "resigned" has not left for he is part of the cabal "unofficially" and "independently" advising our stupid mayor on trying to staunch the persistent growing of the crisis, which to mayor big slow's little credit was exacerbated by the previous mayor fun size's policy decisions and edicts to end vouchers for working poor families and individuals and fast-tracking rezoning and permits for developers. That pile of shit Taylor has connections all the way to D.C. and was an engineer of the warped money hemorrhaging plan to put the other half aka homeless in hotels and cluster shelters in a way to maintain to premium market rate. How else to explain the monthly costs of 3000 a month to house them. Hotel managers, slumlords and owners didn't give a fuck and didn't even have to maintain the premises by cleaning or putting utilities on.
Wanna know why it's a problem now? And it's not because it's a human rights issue. It's that the jig is up and is not as profitable anymore and the sight and smells of the destitute is starting to ire our visitors and transplants, for if anyone can recall, our mayor stated that he values the opinions of people visiting here than the citizens that have been living here longer. The citizens who have to spend money on essential things like food, gas, fares, insurance, rent and bills. But the visitors spend lavishly more and they're the ones that count in this town.
People here are worried about Syrians coming here (besides the majority headed to European nations and Jordan) but our homeless was already a homegrown refugee crisis. Which could easily be fixed if we didn't spend billions trying to exploit them, incarcerate them or try to push them somewhere else out of sight. But as usual, our leaders refuse to learn as they are about to spend more money on orwellian bullshit like HOMESTAT instead of using those funds to build true affordable housing and not some 80-20 bullshit.
Lucky for the homeless that the effects of climate change is going to make this the warmest winter in history. I suggest they camp out by any restaurant that has el fresco dining and rest their rolling luggages and jansports there.
PLAIN AND SIMPLE, THIS CITY IS FUCKED!!
>Why doesn't the city institute a residency law?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapiro_v._Thompson
Doubt it would be constitutional.
>There's also the bullshit "Mandate" to "Shelter & Feed the homeless" that no one seems to be able to substantiate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_for_the_Homeless#Notable_Legal_Cases
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