Group Blasts City's Approach To Homeless Families

The Coalition for the Homeless says that Mayor Bloomberg's policies have led to a huge increase in families living in shelters. There are currently 9,400 families (about 28,000 people) in shelters and the group says more families entered shelters in last year than in any year since the 1980s. At fault, the group says, is the city's decision to stop giving homeless families priority for federal housing vouchers, which allows families to pay 30% of their rent while the government picks up the rest. The NY Times reports that the city did create its own program, where the value of the rent subsidies decreased after a year but "It was widely considered a failure," and the city created another program (which still doesn't satisfy critics). Coalition for the Homeless analyst Patrick Markee said, "We felt that it was a mistake in policy four years ago when they did it, and it’s even more mistaken now, given the recession and the rising numbers of homeless families." In turn, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeless Services tells the Times, "While the coalition sits on the sidelines screaming ‘Fire’ and proposing failed solutions, we are working aggressively with a wide range of homeless providers to place more and more families into homes of their own."