New York has relied on hotels to temporarily house the homeless for years, but now underutilized hotel space will be converted into permanent housing under a new plan announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
Over the last several years, the homeless crisis in New York City has grown more visible and harder to manage. The coronavirus pandemic shined a light on an existing problems: a lack of affordable housing and a continued reliance on hotels to temporarily house the homeless. Robin, a homeless New Yorker PIX1 News met on the Bowery, is not a fan.
“The hotels, you had no services really, just basically food,” Robin said. “That’s about it really. And a place to sleep.”
Hochul’s new plan involves a detailed application process for hotel owners and developers to convert their facilities. She said that run-down hotels can present a safety risk in their respective neighborhoods.
“With hotels hit so hard by the pandemic, many of them never reopened, an opportunity has arisen to use vacant hotels in a way that’ll lift people up and give them yes, the dignity of a home,” Hochul said.
PIX11 News began reporting on the de Blasio administration’s reliance on homeless hotels almost six years ago. That plan used taxpayer dollars to house the homeless in hotel rooms, with no social service, alongside regular, paying guests. Mayor Eric Adams says this time around, converted hotels will become supportive housing.
“New York needs affordable housing, we cannot argue with that. And to not focus on converting hotels that are currently there, currently on the market, sitting empty – converting those hotels into now apartments with permanent housing,” Adams said. “Repurposing these housing is going to allow older adults, those with families, to take these older buildings and now utilize them to give someone a newer life, a life where they can feel they are receiving the housing they deserve.”
15 comments:
The ONLY way this should be done is through legal action via eminent domain –or similar public nuisance action where a nominal fee is paid and the city or state take possession outright.
NO RENT. Zero.
These buildings were built on speculation in areas where they would never be really successful as market rate hotels.
The cynical fallback was always going to be some government social service plan with exorbitant rent paid.
Landlords and property speculators always bray about the ”free market” –till it doesn’t work out.
Then they want the city or state to subsidize them.
Rob in Manhattan
Yeah you all say we need affordable housing but then allow foreign investors into our markets to buy up single family houses just to house other (mainly foreigners) in them. And you allow too many illegals to come and live here. We need to fix our immigration problems here mostly. This will help solve alot of nyc's issues.
@Rob in Stinky Manhattan
Doublespeak and gobbledygook again seriously...
All that empty Manhattan office space speaks volumes about NYC.
Fill them in baby the Lefturds love "free" shit.
"And you allow too many illegals to come and live here."
Illegals and legals both. America has zero immigration control, none. Trump started to get a handle on it after decades of neglect by both useless parties, but Biden undid Trump's good work in a day.
It's funny, but while NYC is full to the brim with "housing advocates" shouting about "justice" and "equity" and all their other useless phrases, you never hear one of them mention the ultimate cause: it's not "not enough housing," it's "too many people." And yet more arrive every single day, now by the many thousands thanks to the Crash Test Dummy President and whoever it is that actually runs things at the moment, because it's clearly not Joey Diapers.
One wonders what is the ultimate plan here? Clearly, Team Biden is working overtime to wreck the country on every front. But why?
Do Lefturds Really Think They Are Fooling Anyone ?
A relocation app would be a good invention to move the poor/homeless to a more affordable place to live instead of the most expensive city in the U.S.
You all put these people in office!
It's the free market economy at work.
Yeah!
Voting for #BLUEANON self-defeating strategy.
The only thing more ridiculous are the people who voted for this.
Prove me wrong...
Prove me wrong ... I can't !
@“ Voting for #BLUEANON ”
Is that the same as “Blue Lives Matter”?
@“ Do Lefturds Really Think They Are Fooling Anyone ?”
Not really. Only TrumpTurds can be fooled all of the time.
Older and infirm homeless are sent to hotels over shelters and laugh it up with free wifi and fancy food. Hotels are hurting because of various temporary externalities but also seizmic paradigm shifts.
Post a Comment