As if we didn’t already have reason to think Mayor Michael Bloomberg is bad for New York, a new report from the New York Times out today shows how under his administration more families than ever are living in city-run shelters. But that’s not even the weirdest part about the whole report, apparently “more than one out of four families in shelters, 28 percent, include at least one employed adult, city figures show, and 16 percent of single adults in shelters hold jobs”. How and why is it then that the city of New York is paying to run shelters for people who are employed?
Under Michael Bloomberg, the number of homeless people in New York City’s shelter system has increased to over 50,000, an all-time high. That means that there are then tens of thousands of New Yorkers with jobs who are calling city-run shelters home.
It costs the city roughly $3,000 each month to house a family in a homeless shelter. These rates are so high because the city has run out of shelter space. In order to then house those who are asking for shelter, the city has been forces to rent thousands of apartments at market price to hold these homeless families. But what’s even more amusing, is that Michael Bloomberg thought he was making strides to help the homeless and cut down on abuse of the city shelters. He wanted to make the shelter system less attractive and enforced stricter requirements in that a shelter is the last resort. He also ended rent subsidies for homeless families to move into permanent housing and also did not allow the moving of homeless families to the top of the waiting list for public housing.
Shockingly enough, these efforts had the exact opposite affect than what Michael Bloomberg hoped for. Why is it then that the Bloomberg administration chose to spend $3,000 each month per family for housing in a shelter when they could have been spending less on subsidies for housing? If you are going to spend that kind of money, there are much more effective ways of achieving the end goal.
Once again, we have proof that Nanny Bloomberg has no idea how to effectively run New York City. There obviously needs to be some re-thinking in their strategy to help those who really need it. The citizens of New York are becoming too dependent on their government and don’t know how to fend for themselves.
