Far from bringing down the rate of homelessness, it appears that Mayor Michael Bloomberg's policies have actually had the opposite effect, with the number of homeless seeking shelter reaching new highs in the last fiscal year, according to a report by the Coalition for the Homeless, at any rate (Reuters).
When Bloomberg became mayor, he promised to lower the homeless rate by more than half with his policy of empowerment through work by the end of his second term. Clearly, that did not happen. Of course, some of the rise in homelessness is due to the economic downturn of the past few years, but in the last fiscal year, 113,553 people had to seek shelter in city facilities, including 42,888 children. Anyway you slice it, it is an astronomical and alarming number.
The city's commissioner for homeless services, Seth Diamond, defended the city's record, and claimed that the coalition's report fails to note that homelessness was actually down 2 percent thus far this current fiscal year, and that the homelessness among children was down 4 percent. Diamond pointed to the Bloomberg administration's policy of emphasizing work over counting on subsidies. The administration believes the improvement is due to a city policy to emphasize work and employment as opposed to simply waiting around for a subsidy, something the city points out will be in short supply especially with the cuts in both state and federal budgets.
The city believes that the coalition is using the very real numbers to push their agenda in a very unfair way, but the fact remains that the homeless population is much higher, and that the Bloomberg administration has not made affordable housing a priority. Advantage, the one program the city had to help homeless families get back on their feet by helping them pay rent for a fixed amount of time was so ineffective that a full third of the participants wound up back in shelters when the time ran out on the aid (Huffington Post). Governor Andrew Cuomo chose to end state aid to the program in the budget. Bloomberg's response? Rather like a petulant five-year-old who, not getting his way, decides that no one is going to play then. He is threatening to end the program immediately, never mind all the families that are in the system now.
The city homeless population deserve more than to be used as a political salvo. They deserve serious attention being paid. At least one organization seems to be willing to serve them as they need. Common Grounds was founded in 1990 by Rosanne Haggerty. Haggerty looked at 255 W. 43rd Street in Times Square, and instead of a run down, maybe should be condemned, definitely should be avoided building, she saw possibility and hope and made it happen. The Times Square now houses 652 low income and formerly homeless residents. Haggerty took that model and ran with it, with help from grants from MacArthur and Ashoka.
You would think that with a working model like Common Grounds that the coalition and the mayor would have something to talk about, but the city has not moved toward a Common Grounds model and the coalition, while acknowledging the good work done by Common Grounds, believes that it does not do enough to address the needs of the temporarily homeless and is not sufficient to help those in need of affordable housing. Perhaps that is true, but if the chronically homeless are being cared for by Common Grounds, then maybe other options open up for homeless families.
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