New York’s Toughest Homeless Problem

Instead of building four new mega-jails in our residential boros, DeBlasio should build new mental hospitals that include drug and alcohol rehabilitation. The majority of homeless single men and women need these services.

Problem of homelessness in urban America especially in America's megacities has reached beyond hopeless. America cannot cope with its own problems and therefore should not try to take on problems of the rest of the world until it finds satisfactory resolutions pf its own problems. Even the city I live in has increasing number of homeless at every corner even with decent homeless shelters. Prompt attention is needed before the situation worsens. It does not seem to be due to unemployment alone. which seems low. It is multiple causes.

The availability of housing is one of the many problems; and although it is a major one--it doesn't necessarily capture the full scope of the issue. Let's imagine that would could house and service every homeless person in NYC. Great! But what are they actually suppose to do when they aren't sleeping or receiving mental health services? Are they suppose to stay inside all day? For the most part, many of them will still end up in public spaces; in parks, sleeping on sidewalks, loitering from place to place and still to a larger extent remain in the public view and still remain pretty much as visible as they are now.

Perhaps I missed it but it is not clear to me how a safe haven is different than a regular homeless shelter. I've volunteered in shelters as a medical volunteer and I know some people avoid them because of concerns about safety, violence, and theft. I also know that some shelters do not allow families with an adult male member while others have strict rules around men and women mixing even if they are a couple, etc. Ultimately, what is needed is FREE and comprehensive psychiatric care and substance abuse treatment for those people who would avail themselves of it were it available. Although not a psychiatrist, I have taken care of people with severe psychotic disorders who are functioning members of society and can support themselves because they had access to care.

I agree with the commenter who said the problem is mental illness and addiction (not what we euphemistically like to refer to as “homelessness.”) Just providing housing to the mentally ill and addicted is not going to fix the problem. Why not safe spaces with a limited number of beds where the mentally ill can live and receive the treatment and medications they need? Shutting down large inhumane mental institutions was well meaning, but sadly no one thought of Plan B if things didn’t work out.

I'm a social worker in Cincinnati with years of experience working with the homeless, most of whom grew up in poverty & are dual-diagnosis. The callousness of the responses here take my breath away.

Nice job, DeBlasio, filling New York’s streets with more and more homeless people. Is that your way of solving what you call ‘income inequality.’ Good luck in explaining your “successes” to the American people in your run for the presidency.

When those paying the bill get fed up with “campers” having no obligation to a social compact (helping those in need, even in some cases against their will if they refuse to adhere to basic standards) then those folks paying the bill will decide also to give up on that social contract, eventually they will elect a more extreme approach, low on true attitude of caring for your fellow human, and resort to violence. See examples of this from Philippines to Brazil. Let’s not join those nations by acting now to address “campers”! Build what’s needed, no refusal allowed if living in public open spaces. Those footing the bill want to see results, and “campers” are a small percentage of the homeless overall. Don’t endanger those “non-camper” homeless, especially children, by breaking the social contract with “campers”! Enforce laws or pass new ones to immediately to begin reducing the “campers”, especially those who are battling addiction, hopefully not in jail but in likely in secured treatment facilities. It will cost a lot more, but it might help turn the trend of homeless addicts and reduce the negative effect they have on public support to help the much larger population of homeless due to causes other than drug problems.

Why do homeless get to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world? We should get them shelter and humanitarian aid...in a place that's 1/10th the cost for housing. Plenty of cheap places in upstate NY.

Housing First. People can’t get their lives together if they’re simply struggling to stay alive. And even small children do better when given choices, when they feel some autonomy. Get people, sheltered, then deal with the rest.

Tough love may be needed. What if…we enforced vagrancy laws and picked up vagrants each night and transported them to a camp for two weeks of “support” - medical, social, legal etc. Free food, new clothing, eye glasses, dental etc. Then, at the end of the two weeks, they would be released again to return to the streets or, have the option of employment and housing, if they will accept it. If not, pick them up again, and again, and release them again and again until they become comfortable with re-integration into society. Surely this is not a new idea. Has any city ever tried it?

Hard to believe the women with children and grandchildren can't take her in - are they in prison or something? If they are not, I hope they read this article

All of us who make more than 75K, here in NYC, should pay an additional 1% for the homeless. This problem needs money. we need to build and sustain more shelters. We need to give these folks some vocational training for a livelihood. Progressive taxation begins with us. NYC gives us so much-what is 1%?

The comments are as diverse as the people, for me it comes back to the fact that all people deserve help in times of hardship surely government should encourage different approaches to helping homeless people as has been stated it's complicated, but these are fellow humans. We too in Australia have similar problems but not so visible. Geraldine.

Hope Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders wins Presidency! Never seen America so: Polarized or Divided in my life! Vote Democratic All the way and impeach Trump ASAP!

DeBlasio gives the Democrats a bad name. He is out for himself. Actually, like all the folks elected to higher office; getting fat off the public trough, promising much but delivering next to nothing.

How about taking the view that the public has the right to go about their business without encountering nasty filth and smells? Filthy people have the right to plop themselves down in the say, library, stinking up the place and muttering while the public chokes and dodges around them? I do believe that is the philosophy of the Dems. The many must suffer on behalf of the few. This article talks about huge sums being expended on just one person. Madness.

Camp LaGuardia, closed by Bloomberg, actually worked. But it won't be re-opened because De Blasio is owned by the landlord lobby which benefits hugely from the homeless problem. $117 a night to house the homeless -- for that price they could get a hotel room upstate with a continental breakfast and free wifi.

We have the same problem in Seattle, that is to say politicians in the name of compassion or fairness, refuse to clear out public “campers” who refuse services but find the means to feed their drug addictions and create a toxic mess in addition to crimes that we then also have to pay to remediate. We want to help the homeless, including funding mental health and drug treatment and permanent housing for the long term disabled, but by allowing the “campers” and all their crime, garbage, human waste, and the danger posed to public health from their behavior, we diminish public support (i.e. tax support) that needed for real solutions. People give up and demand a hard edge lock them up or force them out approach without supportive action that might help long term. A decrease in willingness to help all homeless and adoption of dehumanizing language/attitudes is the result of allowing “campers” to set the rules for use of public space.

Getting rid of de Blasio has has Democratic Socialists would help a lot. "Landlords Get a $173 Million Deal From City as Their Lawyer Raises Funds for de Blasio" "https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/nyregion/homeless-buildings-sold-de-blasio-democrats.html"

Meanwhile we have empty state mental hospitals. Do people have a right to be crazy and endanger themselves and occasionally others? Legal institutionalization needs to be rethought.

There are a lot of social problems that can't be fixed. Homelessness is just one of them. I used to give money to "help the homeless" back in the 80s and 90s, but stopped. Despite the people who say "this model works" and "that new way of doing things works" it's obvious, while a few people may be helped in this manner -- and good for them! -- we do not know how to fix this at a high level. So the problem just keeps going on and on and on. Every few months a determinedly hopeful article in the newspaper shows, more than anything else, that our society has no way at all for facing the fact that there is no solution available for this. We just can't believe that a lot of things are beyond our solution capabilities. So a lot of us -- especially our journalists -- have an ostrich's rather sandy view of the world.

I wonder if every American adult had a universal basic income of about $1,000 a month if this would do anything to reduce homelessness? Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang says it would.

Stray dogs are taken off the streets and given assistance. Hard to believe we allow drug-addicted and mentally I'll humans to live on the streets.

If someone is living on the street and refuses help that is a good indication of mental illness. Under the guise of civil rights, mental institutions were closed and people scattered to the street. It is society's job to care for those who can't do it themselves. The city should confiscate the buildings of landlords who are not caring for them and refit them with small rooms for the chronically homeless so they have a place to keep their things, know where they can sleep safely, shower and use the restroom. Social services can attend to their needs without having to scour the streets looking for their clients. People of NYC should not have to walk around the homeless, their bags of stuff or their droppings.

I'm surprised that this article didn't mention Housing First, a national evidence-based model for chronically homeless people. The model originated in New York and has extensive research evidence to support its effectiveness. The research has shown that homeless shelters don't work well for complex chronically homeless people experiencing addiction and mental health challenges. Instead, by moving a person directly into their own apartment, using harm-reduction techniques, allowing the patient some agency and autonomy; they can have great outcomes. They will often spontaneously reduce their addiction from the safety and security of a quiet apartment. Some data shows that shelters only succeed 20-30% of time for the most complex people whereas housing first can succeed up to 90% of the time. The barriers to the spread of housing first are often the technical ability of the social service provider....it's really hard to train staff to do the model with fidelity and the challenges of managing the voucher process. To succeed, housing first needs to be a no barrier entry model. A homeless person would move from the street one day and then directly into a new apartment the next day. Thanks.

Thank you for this article. Homelessness is a multifaceted problem, and the people who end up on the streets usually have, as you eloquently put it, a "constellation of problems." There's an exploitative "homeless makeover" video by a Brooklyn-based social media "influencer" that's been making the rounds on LinkedIn for the last couple of months. It boils my blood. Well-meaning people who do not understand the complexities of homelessness love it and think what they're seeing is genuine and life changing. Besides exploiting a young unsheltered man in order to generate followers and revenue, it grossly oversimplifies the work required to help someone achieve lasting self-sufficiency and gives the impression that all it takes to fix homelessness is a haircut, some new clothes and a job offer. Were it only so simple.

While homeless people deserve help and compassion, the rest of us also deserve a safe and sanitary environment. Often the "rights" of the homeless are held as being much more important than the rights of the general public to not have to navigate endless streams of garbage, and environmental hazards such as needles and feces. At some point just because some don't want to conform I lose sympathy for them. For those suffering from mental illness or needing help trying to find shelter, we should do all we can.

If shelter space is available, people aren’t homeless, they are camping illegally. Under the guise of being kind, NYC is leaving its mentally ill lying on sidewalks. It is long past time to enforce laws against camping, public urination, and so on. Diversionary programs then would send willing folks to services instead of jail. Apparently this approach is working in Miami.

DeBlasio needs to stop campaigning for a futile presidential bid and do his job - be the mayor of New York. I saw a man crawling on 6th ave the other day - it was the most horrible sight that I had ever seen in my life. Something needs to be done.

Writing as one who lived homeless for years, in Oregon and California, it is apparent to me that we need to totally rethink our social systems that help homeless people. We need to start from the bottom and make sure there is shelter space for every American, absolutely every one. Here in Eugene Oregon, a county that is about the size of Ct.,there is no public shelter. It is an illusion to say that the private corporate structure will provide housing for all, or jobs for all, for the fact is, many of us will never again fit in that mold, and the housing markets in cities price most of us out into the cold. As an American, if indeed the homeless person is such, that person owns America. They own the land, they own the oil, they own the forests and the seas, they own the highways. In Oregon, where half of the land is owned by federal or state, they are landowners. Yet no one acts as their intermediary to charge monies and get that money to the poor. I watched many trucks laden with lumber from my Willamette National Forest, but never was given a penny for my property. So that New Yorker, if asked if taxes on the rich should be raised to provide for the survival of the poor, would reply..."of course". We poor have been turned into refugees in our own country, and that needs to change. I so hope Bernie gets the White House, my house. Hugh

Meanwhile, they're turning the savoy hotel in midtown into a homeless shelter. It costs $50,000 per person per year. That's more than double the rent on a studio apartment on the upper east side. And they are sharing rooms. When you're paying that kind of money to house the homeless, money runs out pretty quickly....

If I lived in NYC I would like to work with Ms. Coover. Meanwhile, I will do what I can here where I live.

If you want to know where the city's priorities are all you have to do is look at the 96th St. stop on the Q train on any given morning. If police are there, they are watching only for fare evasion. Meanwhile, just down the stairs, you have homeless people who have set up camp in subway cars, complete with garbage strewn about the train, shopping carts, unwashed bodies that smell so much that everyone simply abandons one or more cars on the train, and, from time to time, people yelling to themselves. Every day. Without fail. I'm all for helping people, and these people clearly need help. But I have to go to work and I just want to, for once, be able to get on the train at 7am and not have not navigate a sea of homeless people who are sleeping on the benches and leaving garbage everywhere. If that makes me a horrible human being, then I guess I'm awful. How about the police walk down the stairs and clear the train? Of course they won't, because there's no money in that for the city.

Thank you ladies - God's work.

NYC's homeless problem is at epidemic proportions. You can barely walk any street in Manhattan without running into someone homeless. All this is happening under De Blasio whose motto is "fairness". It's mind-boggling that the richest city in the world hasn't been able to deal with the homeless issue for decades. Travel to any major city in the world (many much less wealthy than NYC) and you'll see that many don't have this problem at all. This indicates major dysfunction at the institutions responsible for tackling this issue, i.e., officials are not doing their jobs. The city can take a simple data-driven approach to this. If the number of homeless doesn't go down under a certain official's rule, they need to be fired and replaced with someone that can get the job done!