Homeless Families Flock To Shelters During This Summer

The city is gearing up for more families to enter the shelter system: The NY Times reports, "Because the homeless population this spring was up more than 20 percent over last spring, possibly because of higher unemployment, officials are girding for an all-time high in the number of families in shelters at once, expecting close to 10,000. Already, the number has reached 9,420...In New York, the number of homeless families applying for shelter in the summer has been 28 percent higher than the rest of the year the last three years." Some families wait till the summer to enter the shelter system, so their children can at least finish the school year, after they decided to leave terrible apartment situations (one family's fight with their landlord left them without gas or electricity for months) or when their relatives kick them. One woman said, "My sister said we couldn’t stay with her anymore. I said once [my daughter is] done with school, we’d get out." The Bloomberg administration says it's ready, and will use some not-quite full shelters and vacant apartment buildings.