Report Criticizes Mayor’s Homeless Plan

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The New York Sun

On the heels of fresh criticism from the Independent Budget Office, another report criticizing Mayor Bloomberg’s failure to beat homelessness in the city was issued today by the Institute for Children and Poverty.

In 2004, Mr. Bloomberg committed to an ambitious five-year plan to cut the number of New York’s homeless by two-thirds.

Despite increased spending on shelters and homelessness prevention, Mr. Bloomberg’s initiative “doesn’t appear to be working,” an assistant director of the Institute for Children and Poverty, Meg Devlin O’Sullivan, said.

“This is absolutely a growing problem and as our report makes clear, it’s not being addressed adequately right now,” Ms. O’Sullivan said.

City Council Member Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn said Mr. Bloomberg “should re-examine his current policies, such as his virtual refusal to utilize public housing and Section 8 for housing homeless families.”

Though hard numbers are difficult to come by since many of the city’s homeless aren’t in the shelter system, the New York City Department of Homeless Services estimates 7,752 families with children are homeless.

“The current decade has proven the worst for New York City homelessness since the Great Depression of the 1930s,” according to the Coalition for the Homeless.


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