Scared Of City Shelters, Homeless New Yorkers Opting To Sleep On The Street
Times Square homeless haven cleared out after Post exposé
Why does it take an exposé to get a homeless encampment shut down?Why did it take inquiries from The Post to get the city to break up a homeless encampment right off Times Square? Because Team de Blasio just can’t face reality.
For months, cops did nothing as a homeless contingent turned the area beneath a building scaffold into an encampment. City Hall claimed that the squatters’ camp was kosher because it didn’t violate the mayor’s 2015 policy barring the erection of structures on public sidewalks.
The idea was that cardboard “structures” didn’t count — even though they make the same claim on public space as ones using wood or other materials.
Locals complained, but nothing changed until The Post started asking questions. Then City Hall dispatched cops to break up the illegal shantytown and put up barricades to discourage their return.
De Blasio’s team uses code words to describe homelessness (NYP)
And a “pop-up” refers to a people living in easily dismantled shelters, like tents or cardboard boxes.
Homeless set up shanty town under Times Square scaffolding (NYP)
City's Homeless Plan Isn't Keeping Pace
The mayor set out a timeline for himself during that speech: he said 90 shelters would open over five years at a rate of around 20 shelters each year. That means that by now, more than a year and a half later, more than 30 should be in operation. Instead, just 17 of them — a little over half — have opened.
Nathylin Flowers Adesegun, who confronted
De Blasio confronted again by 72-year-old homeless woman he rebuffed at the gym (NYDN)
A
72-year-old homeless woman who Hizzoner blew off at his YMCA gym last
month finally got to ask him a question Friday — by calling in to his
weekly radio show.
Nathylin
Flowers Adesegun, who was rebuffed by Mayor de Blasio while he was
trying to get buff, saved her question for after his work-out Friday —
and called in to the Brian Lehrer Show to ask him to set aside 10% of
his affordable housing plan’s units for homeless people like her, up
from 5% now.
“Only
5% of that is for homeless people, despite our having the greatest
need,” she said. “We need help for the people who need it the most.”
While
she finally got to ask her question, the homeless senior citizen didn’t
get the answer she was hoping for, nor did she get any expression of
sympathy for her plight.
“We
just disagree on this as a solution, and I want to be straightforward,
and I’ve said this at town hall meetings and all sorts of other
settings, people have asked me, and you can keep asking me, it’s a free
society, but I’m going to keep giving you the same answer: I disagree
that that is the right approach,” de Blasio told her.
The
mayor has argued that his affordable housing plan needs to be
“everyone,” not just the homeless. He argued Adesegun, who has been
sleeping in a homeless shelter for two years, was focused on the wrong
solution, boasting that the city had moved 90,000 people out of shelter
and into affordable housing over the last five years.
“Ninety
thousand. You keep talking about the different percentages, and I
respect that, but I’m telling you about facts that have already
happened, not theory, not something in the future,” de Blasio said.
He
also touted the city’s efforts to stop people from becoming homeless in
the first place by preventing evictions — which, like the efforts to
move homeless people out of shelter, has not helped Adesegun.
“I
believe in a very imperfect situation that these are the right
strategies. I’ve heard the suggestions from your organizations, and I
just disagree with them,” he said.
Homeless advocate who confronted de Blasio at the gym gets meeting (NYP)
The homeless advocate who interrupted Mayor Bill de Blasio’s gym routine last week couldn’t get an answer out of him — but she did land a meeting at City Hall. The group VOCAL-NY and community leader Nathylin Flowers Adesegun will
meet on Monday with officials from City Hall, the Department of Homeless
Services and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Why I confronted the mayor, and what homeless New Yorkers should demand from his housing plan (NYDN) It’s been over a week since I confronted Mayor de Blasio at the Park Slope YMCA during his workout. I went there with the intention of speaking to him about our city’s homeless crisis, and my own.
One out of every 10 students lived in temporary housing during the last school year.
The number of homeless ever night is 62,000 an increase of 10,000 since de Blasio took office. The city says is creating 300,000 low and moderate income units why is only 15,000 dedicated to the homeless? The city is creating 40 new homeless shelters and 50 more by 2022.
An Activist Ambushed de Blasio at His Gym. She Raised a Good Point. (NYT)
The number of homeless ever night is 62,000 an increase of 10,000 since de Blasio took office. The city says is creating 300,000 low and moderate income units why is only 15,000 dedicated to the homeless? The city is creating 40 new homeless shelters and 50 more by 2022.
As homelessness in NYC continues to grow, de Blasio refuses to engage with activist on issue (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
Real Estate Developers, Tax Breakes 421-a and Zoning
How Blacks the Poor and the Middle Class are Being Push Out of Brooklyn Because of Albany's Tax Breaks for Luxury Developers
State homeless population said to be larger than population in all but two New York cities (NYDN) How Blacks the Poor and the Middle Class are Being Push Out of Brooklyn Because of Albany's Tax Breaks for Luxury Developers
Child Abuse ACS Connects to
the City's Unregulated HomelessBad Landlord, Non Profit Connect
The Silver Trial and Real Estate Payoffs
The Silver Trial and Real Estate Payoffs
de Blasio Admits Market Forces Causing Homelessness . . . Cuomo Extends War With Cuomo to Affordable Housing
One of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature initiatives hit an obstacle when Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration curbed a financial resource critical to building low-income housing, The Wall Street Journal reports: * The Times writes that Cuomo and de Blasio need to set their unresolvable issues aside and that Cuomo should respond to the mayor’s affordable housing plan with a similar or bigger commitment that delivers the support New Yorkers need: * One of NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature initiatives hit an obstacle this week, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration curbed a financial resource critical to building low-income housing.
de Blasio: "The market dynamics are forcing people out faster than all of our tools can compensate.”
One of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature initiatives hit an obstacle when Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration curbed a financial resource critical to building low-income housing, The Wall Street Journal reports: * The Times writes that Cuomo and de Blasio need to set their unresolvable issues aside and that Cuomo should respond to the mayor’s affordable housing plan with a similar or bigger commitment that delivers the support New Yorkers need: * One of NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature initiatives hit an obstacle this week, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration curbed a financial resource critical to building low-income housing.
de Blasio: "The market dynamics are forcing people out faster than all of our tools can compensate.”
Bill’s de Blasio'shomelessness crisis (NYDN
ED) Bill de Blasio came into office with a single-minded solution for
homelessness: shut down dirty, dangerous shelters and use the savings to
secure permanent housing. After The New York Times documented the harsh
life of a young girl in a fetid city-run shelter, the then-mayor elect
said: “We cannot let children of this city like Dasani down.” Now America’s
champion of progressives is reckoning with breaking that vow. Meeting
with the Daily News Editorial Board on Thursday, de Blasio made the
extraordinary admission that he cannot keep up with the tide of people
seeking housing assistance: “What we’re having a hell of a time with
is. * New York City is planning to add more
housing for homeless adults and children fleeing domestic violence, the
latest effort by de Blasio’s administration to deal with a homelessness
problem that has persisted as housing costs in the city have continued
to soar. One Exception the Hotel Unions NYC Mayor de Blasio defended his
administration’s four-month-old law curtailing hotel conversions into
residential space amid a legal battle with the powerful Real Estate
Board of New York. “We obviously think the bill was appropriate,” the
mayor said. * With two key rezoning efforts in De Blasio’s affordable housing plan facing opposition from
many of the city’s community boards, the Daily News’ Juan Gonzalez
writes that the mayor should consider taking control of the Battery Park
City Authority from the state to increase funding for affordable
housing: * Construction
of 55 teeny-tiny micro-apartments – an experiment approved by former
NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg as a potential solution to the city’s housing
crisis – is nearly complete, with 60,000 people applying for one of the 14 “affordable” units.
Only 3,000 of De Blasio's 20,000 Affordable Housing UnitsAre Permanent via @Dnainfo *
Just months after Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration argued that
hiring union workers would undermine the mayor’s affordable housing
plan, Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Letitia James
announced a plan to partner with organized labor, the Observer writes: * Politico New York hasmapped the more than 3,000 affordable housing units being built in 2015 as part of New York City’s voluntary Inclusionary Housing Program: * Four Reasons You Can’t Stop the Brooklyn Juggernaut - Commercial Real Estate * In a clash with their landlord, these apartment tenantsstarted making covert recordings. (NYT) Residents of rent-stabilized units in an East Village apartment
building used cellphones and camcorders to record talks with their
landlord’s agent, who they say tried to scare them into leaving.* The affordable housing the mayor refuses to see (NYP)
De Blasio might be surprised, then, to learn that the much-maligned
private market is offering plenty of rental housing at prices equivalent
to what the city would charge in new, subsidized units — but since city
affordable housing costs New York either property-tax abatements or
other cash subsidies, the private market’s affordable housing is
cheaper. For everyone. * The Manhattan Institute’s Howard Husock and Alex Armlovichin the Post write that New York City ought
to focus on spreading the word about the large amount of affordable
housing that exists rather than building new units:* A report by the
Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development shows New York City
subsidies have historically focused on areas that need the least help,
but its push to change this seems like a long-shot,Crain’s reports: *
The de Blasio administration and New York City Councilman Corey Johnson
announced plans to generate $100 million for repairs at Manhattan’s Pier 40 by authorizing a five-building housing development, the Daily News reports * Unions Slam de Blasio-Backed Affordable Housing WithStolen Wage Report (NYO)
* Nearly half of the affordable apartment tenants in a new survey say
they're spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent, a level
considered “rent-burdened,” and 14 percent say more than 50 percent of
their income goes to rent, the Daily News writes: * Survey shows some NYC affordable housing tenants still pay high rent * In another apparent dispute between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, the governor has threatened to cancel funding for federal tax-exempt bonds that would finance the mayor’s affordable housing plan
How Team de Blasio (Berlin Rosen) Tried to Blame Homelessness and the NYCHA Mess On Cuomo
How Berlin Rosen Tried To Blame Cuomo for NYC's Homeless Problem
How Berlin Rosen Tried To Blame Cuomo for NYC's Homeless Problem
Homelessness,
especially among school age children, continues to grow to record
levels, new data shows. The information compiled by Assemblyman Andrew
Hevesi and the Coalition for the Homeless found that 254,866 individuals
in New York were homeless at some point during 2017-18.
More Albany Corruption
FEMA crook sobs at sentence hearing, judge balks (NYP)
Disgraced former politician Pamela Harris will have to wait until next Wednesday to learn whether or not she’ll see the inside of a cell.
Brooklyn federal court judge Jack Weinstein had been scheduled to sentence Harris Friday for defrauding FEMA out of approximately $25,000 following Superstorm Sandy.
Judge pushes back sentencing for Pamela Harris — again
Dean Skelos suffering from depression and a drinking problem, court docs claim(NYP)
