City Forces Churches to Send Homeless into the Cold

The city's Department of Homeless Services has recently begun enforcing a rule that is forcing 22 churches to stop serving as homeless shelters. The long-ignored rule states that religious-based shelters operate a minimum of five days a week. Many of these churches had long slipped under the radar and housed those in need three days a week. Arnold Cohen, president of the Partnership for the Homeless, who recently had to break the news to churches told the News, "We will see hundreds of people who will not have a place to sleep. It's antithetical to what the mayor talks about." The city is expected to once again this winter use the Code Blue system, an emergency-preparedness system that prompts city workers to take extra precautions to protect homeless people living on the streets. Right now we are at Level Two in Code Blue with temperatures outside currently at 17ºF after the wind chill factor.

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By Billy Parker in News on November 22, 2008 10:10 AM

Comments [rss]

NannyState

They hate the city shelters so that's why churches are taking them in. Why doesn't Bloomberg address the conditions at those shelters before casting his bullshit net out further?

Shinobi Shaw

The homeless will be first group to be rounded up at the FEMA Camps.

schizofriendly

There will soon be a new kind of homelessness.

Mind your karma now.

Spirit of 76

This makes no sense at all. They claim that city shelters can absorb the people displaced from the churches. If that's true, then where exactly is the harm in letting the churches handle them three days a week?

thefacts

#11 Bet you the City would never enforce that rule for the wealthy and connected.

hungryghoast

this whole goddamn world operates ass-backwards.

Bottomless Chips

This is fucking nuts.

Churches and private institutions should be the ones helping the poor.

As soon as I can find another job outside of here, I'm moving the fuck out. Food prices are going to go through the roof, MTA, city income tax, and this BS...

Snoopy

Isn't Trump SoHo under review for the same thing but in an opposite twist?

widefive

It looks to me that their intention isn't to throw the homeless back onto the streets, it is to raise the bar and hold the shelters to play be the rules and provide 5 nights of accommodation as required by the regulations.

What does following those regulations get them? Funding? Tax breaks? If either, I say hold them accountable for the 5 nights or create new legislation for these 3 night per week shelters with incentives that reflect the reduced (though critical) level of service they provide.

Reflect

What the fuck is a code gonna do. What a slap in the face. Code blue means fuck you. Basically.

NannyState

Bloomberg wants them gone or dead. Like any other mega-rich jerk.

JacqueMehoff

I'm seeing more homeless people this year.

now who's sorry camp laguardia was sold? what's the mayor gonna do now, dump them in the rivers and let LI and NJ handle them?