So I was doing some digging to follow up on my last post since it seemed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans for dealing with homelessness were pretty vague. What I found is a 13 page document that’s dated eight months before the article I used in my last post that outlines everything de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo are planning to do. I’ll post the link at the bottom, and I highly encourage you guys to check it out; these guys are trying to end – yes, END – homelessness in New York City by 2020. Of the nine main concepts outlined in the document, at least five focus on housing and rental assistance to prevent homelessness.

A couple comments I have about the document: I’m really interested to see how raising the minimum wage in N.Y.C. to $15/hour would affect the economy. It sounds great, but I know there is an argument to be made against it from a business standpoint; since economics isn’t my strongest subject I don’t know what kinds of effects this would have on both small and large businesses, and overall I think this will be one of the more controversial parts of de Blasio and Cuomo’s plan. Another thing I wanted to touch on is under section 3 of the document it states that de Blasio and Cuomo will renew a City-State agreement to create and fully fund 30,000 units of supportive housing over the next ten years. First off, the beginning of the document says they’re trying to end homelessness in five years, but that’s not the point. What stood out to me was that one of the bullet-points under this agreement states 20,000 of those units will go towards individuals, while 8,700 go to families, and 1,300 to youths. I’m a little confused as to why families aren’t getting the majority of these housing units, I feel families should be more of a primary target in terms of getting people off the streets. I’m not trying to say families are more or less worthy of housing than individuals by any means, I was just a little thrown off by the figures because allocating 20,000 of the units towards families would get more than double the people off the streets.

I think this document is great way for us to get an idea of what it’s like trying to create public policies to counteract homelessness, and it’s definitely something I’d like to go over as a class one day if at all possible.

Click to access HomesForEveryNYerReport04072015.pdf

Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced his new plan for monitoring homelessness on the streets of New York City. It’s called HomeStat, and the idea is to have outreach workers and police officers in the streets of the city on a daily basis tracking responses to reports of homeless people on the streets in real time. However, the overall goal of the plan isn’t really revealed in the article, and is therefore up to some speculation. For example, Judith Goldiner, head of the Legal Aid Society’s Law Reform Unit, said the increase of outreach workers is greatly appreciated; however, she is unsure whether or not the increase of police officers would be of much help. She stated that getting the homeless off the street and in to shelters is one of the Law Reform Unit’s top priorities, but the last thing they want to do is criminalize homeless people. With Police Commissioner William Bratton’s comment on the matter saying there’s a possibility some homeless people will be arrested for minor crimes, it has yet to be determined how effective the Mayor’s plan will be.

Despite having donated millions of dollars towards addressing the social causes of homelessness, in a recent poll 62% of those who participated disapproved of the Mayor’s plan. It’s been said Mayor de Blasio is not putting enough emphasis on getting people off of the streets. 61 year old Floyd Parks – who has been living on and off the streets for multiple years – believes the city should be focusing on trying to find permanent housing for those out of the streets instead of simply trying to get them in to shelters.

As of right now this plan seems quite ambiguous. It’ll be interesting to see how the influx of outreach workers and police affect the situation, and whether or not there will be any conflict between the two groups trying to accomplish relatively the same goal. Personally I don’t think we’ll hear much more about the plan for a couple months, but I think it’s a good first step towards keeping the public in the loop about the reality these people face, and hopefully it is the foundation for better things to come.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/nyregion/mayor-de-blasio-unveils-plan-to-track-homeless-population.html?_r=0