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