New York – New York may be famous abroad for glitz, glamor and Park Avenue billionaires but America’s biggest city has passed a grim milestone — a record 60,000 people are homeless.
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In November, there were 60,352 homeless people in the city, including 25,000 children, up more than 10 percent on the 53,615 who were homeless in January 2014, according to the website for charity Coalition for the Homeless.
Patrick Markee, deputy executive director for Advocacy Coalition for the Homeless, said the “historic homelessness crisis” in New York had worsened since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014.
He blamed the city’s acute housing affordability crisis, policies of previous mayor Michael Bloomberg and failures in restoring permanent housing assistance for homeless families and children.
On Tuesday in his state of the city address, de Blasio made affordable housing a key promise of his administration in 2015.
“We commit to ending chronic veterans homelessness by the end of this year. Those who fight to protect our freedom abroad should never be left without a home,” he said.
He also promised 10,000 affordable housing units for the elderly — who “deserve to retire in dignity” and people on fixed incomes with little recourse when housing costs go up.”
Part of the problem is greedy developers who think nothing of going to a lower income area and instead of building affordable housing, decide they would rather build a 40 story luxury rental aimed at spoiled hipsters and yuppies. Unfortunately some of these short sighted developers are frum Yidden.
To #1 - Don’t blame Yidden for the so-called homeless problem. The vast majority of the adult homeless are individuals addicted to drugs and alcohol. They’ve made a choice to be addicted to those substances, and expect society to bail them out. In other countries, such behavior is not tolerated. In fact, deviants who appear drunk or high in public, or those who harass people by aggressive panhandling are rounded up, and either made to work, or are removed from populated areas. When Guiliani was Mayor, those deviants were not tolerated. Even if adequate housing was made available, it would not solve this problem.
The homeless problem would be much smaller if people would work. I thought Obama would help bring hope and change? The only hope and change he brought was for illegals coming over the border with their gangs and diseases and Islamists will today have much hope and have been empowered and emboldened by Hussein Obama
DiBlasio bringing the city back to the 70s. Homeless, drugs and crime running rampant.
the only way to solve the problem is to take private developers like the Schrons out of the picture and have the government build like Robert Moses did.
Homeless people sometimes also have other issues. If not, you can move to a place that is cheaper. It’s not about the expensive rents. No one has a “right” to live only in Manhattan…
To #4 -“CharleyHall”- You were not at all respectful to Mr. Mendelowitz, with the use of your despicable word “ignoramus”. Doesn’t Halacha teach us to be respectful to other people, and disagree in a kind and respectful manner. It just so happens that I agree with Mr. Mendelowitz, regarding his description of the homeless. The vast majority are on drugs and alcohol. At one point in their lives, they made a conscious choice to consume drugs and alcohol, and continued to so so. They cannot blame society, or use the excuse that “I’m addicted”. I am not going to have any compassion for aggressive panhandlers who harass and threaten the public. Whereas Yidden are supposed to be compassionate towards all, Halacha also states that we should not do anything to place our health or lives in any danger. Hence, it is best to stay away from homeless individuals who don’t wash, are drunk, and have carry diseases. As Mr. Mendelowitz stated, giving the homeless inexpensive housing, would not solve the problem. This has been tried before, and the former homeless tenants would wreck the apartments given to them. They must be rounded up, made to shower, made to work, and get off drugs and alcohol.