The city has been cracking down on Single Room Occupancy [SRO] buildings that operate as illegal tourist hotels. But the crackdown has caused an uproar on the Upper West Side, where the owner of The Hotel Alexander has decided to turn the seven-floor building on West 94th Street into a 200-bed shelter for homeless men. At a protest outside the building yesterday, politicians rallied against the plan, demanding that the building be used for low-income housing, not a homeless shelter. more ›

Over 160 firefighters responded to a four-alarm fire at the Love Gospel Assembly in the Fordham section of the Bronx early yesterday morning. The fire occurred around 1:30 a.m.; the church was unoccupied but three civilians were injured as the blaze spread to a homeless shelter next door. One woman who lived at the shelter said, "It was so crazy. You could smell the smoke so bad. It was in my eyes, and no alarms went off. People were going sort of nuts trying to get out." The church, which also operated a soup kitchen, is vowing to rebuild; another resident said, "They give out tons of food to the homeless and are always providing services. They do so much for the community. I hope the community helps them out now." more ›

Once all the homeless in the city's shelters get a damn job (Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond's words, not ours), a new policy will require them to save all that hard earned cash so they can get the hell out. Instead of paying rent to the shelter, a plan that received a fair amount of backlash every time enforcement was attempted, the funds will be put into a "interest bearing savings account." more ›

Homeless shelter residents with jobs will have to start paying rent later this year, thanks to a new plan to end "open-ended handouts" from the city. Though the city hopes that this will encourage residents to save money and move out, critics say the plan would keep the homeless from saving enough. According to the Daily News, residents would have to pay 30% of their gross income as rent in the first year of the program, and the highest of either 30% of the resident's income or 50% of the cost of their housing the second year. more ›

Facing a $45 million deficit and never before seen demand, the NYC Housing Authority is considering the "inconceivable" measure of revoking vouchers that help low-income New Yorkers afford their rent. It may take back as many as 10,500 Section 8 permits, reports the Times, pushing recipients into overcrowded shelters. Judith Goldliner of NY's Legal Aid Society was shocked at the prospect. “This is just a disaster,” she said. “We don’t know who could be impacted by it.” more ›

In 2005 55 homeless people lived in Times Square, last summer there were five, and today there's just one lone holdout. His name is Heavy, and clad in a red knit cap he can be found drinking coffee, stationed beside a black and red suitcase. For years he's fielded daily offers of housing, but he won't budge, reports the Times. Heavy isn't aggressive and doesn't panhandle much. “He is a sweetheart,” said an 82-year-old woman who's lived in the area for 44 years. Still, representatives of street outreach nonprofits hope he'll someday surrender his Times Square quarters. “I just have this dream that all of a sudden something will snap, and he’ll say, I’d love to have housing,” said one. more ›

As more families move into homeless shelters, the city keeps trying to get them to leave shelters sooner. In the past two years, the number of homeless families in shelters has surged by more than 50 percent to 8,600, while the length of their average shelter stay has fallen from 10.5 months to eight. Shelters impose strict deadlines, and the city actually gives less money to nonprofits that run shelters where residents take too long to leave, the Times reports. Some say the city is forcing families back onto the streets too soon. "[E]verybody is pushing families out really fast, with no education and no preparation," said Ralph da Costa Nuñez, of Homes for the Homeless. "We send families out, and we know we're going to see them again." more ›

In his State of the Borough address tonight, Borough President Marty Markowitz will lobby to turn two Brooklyn armories into recreation centers with gym facilities. Currently the huge old buildings—located on Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights and on Sumner Avenue in Bed-Stuy—house homeless shelters, and, like the recently-opened Park Slope Armory YMCA, they may continue to do so. "The [YMCA] in Park Slope is just beginning, but I have a hunch in a few short months it's going to be jam-packed," Markowitz said. "Bedford Stuyvesant deserves it as much as Park Slope, and so does northern Crown Heights." more ›

Despite their best efforts, a coalition of homeless people and community activists failed to arrest Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner. Though the man behind the $4.9 billion plan to move one of the worst teams in NBA history to Brooklyn isn't facing an indictment and there are no warrants out for his arrest, the demonstrators planned to lock him up over allegations of bribery at a widely publicized rally they held in front of his Downtown Brooklyn building. more ›

A Prospect Heights homeless shelter that housed about 80 families was itself made homeless over the weekend, to make room for the controversial Barclay's Center/Atlantic Yards project. Thirty-five families have been moved from the Pacific Dean Annex shelter to permanent housing, and 45 to other shelters, over the protest of local politicians and pop singer Crystal Waters, whose 1990s hit song “Gypsy Woman” is about a homeless woman that sings for her supper. Waters joined Council Member Letitia James and other community activists Saturday night at a protest rally at Freddy's Bar, which is also slated for demolition. In a statement, James blasted the Atlantic Yards project: more ›

To make room for the planned extension of the 7 train, the Port Authority will evict the city's largest homeless drop-in center at the end of March, according to the Daily News. The Open Door shelter — which every day provides meals and showers to some 200 homeless men and women — would have closed sooner, but the city was able to convince the transit agency to delay a part of the line extension project to keep shelter visitors off the streets during the winter. Though the Open Door shelter doesn't have beds, an average of 94 people slept there per night in September. One of the regulars, 63-year-old Lee Parker, told the tabloid he has slept in a chair at the shelter each night for the past two months. "It's better than sleeping out on the street," he said. "It's safe and warm." more ›

The Post says that "two distressed luxury condo buildings -- one in Harlem and another in Downtown Brooklyn -- are in talks with the city to unload their unsold units at fire-sale prices as affordable housing." Hey, if luxury condos can become homeless shelters, why not? While it's unclear which condos are being eyed, apparently the city is negotiating with the banks that foreclosed on the properties. And the city's housing commissioner Rafael Cesetro said the condo developers/banks "would have to take significant losses"—a $500,000 condo could be purchased by the city for $300,000 (plus the developer/bank would get a $50,000 subsidy). Cesetro added that developers were only thinking about the bubble, "Some of the sales assumptions seemed like a stretch in any kind of market. In Downtown Brooklyn, and not on the water, they had buildings underwritten to sell for $800 to $900 a square foot." Will more luxury condos be turned over to the city? more ›

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. more ›

As the debate to legalize gay marriage rages on within the chaotic confines of Albany, two young men took matters into their own hands and hoodwinked their way into a marriage certificate at the City Clerk's Office. Hakim Nelson and Jason Stenson were married on May 26th, sliding under the radar on Nelson's food stamps card, which lists him as a female. No one at the clerk's office raised an eyebrow since Nelson arrived wearing an orange dress with white leggings. The two believe that they made history with Stenson saying, "People in Albany can say, 'Look, it's already happened, so let's just make it legal.'" Hakim Nelson and Jason Stenson, you might be New York's first gay marriage to go public, what are you gonna do now? We're taking our story to the New York Post! The Post talked to a city official, who seemed pretty unfazed, telling the paper, "If someone is trying to willfully sneak through, we try to stop it. But you have instances of females [who] have male names and vice versa. You've heard of a boy named Sue, right?" The newlyweds have been honeymooning at a homeless youth shelter in Brooklyn. more ›

After publishing that quintessential degentrification story about a new luxury condo in Crown Heights being converted to a homeless shelter, the Daily News reports that after reading the article, at least four homeless people "flocked" to the building yesterday. more ›

Instead of boarding up an unoccupied luxury condo in Crown Heights and letting it fall into disrepair, the owner has done the unthinkable: arranged to let homeless people live there. The new apartments, which were originally priced up to $350,000, seem pretty nice; one resident who moved in with his wife and two young daughters tells the Daily News, "When I first saw it, I was like, 'Damn, everything is brand new.' It has marble counters and marble floors in the bathrooms, too. I like the big kitchen. That's my favorite." Another new resident, an out-of-work truck driver from Miami who's living with his teenage son, crows, "The closet in the main room is so big you could put a twin bed in there." Lucky homeless! more ›

After the city recently started charging rent to the working homeless residing in shelters, questions and criticism soon followed. Now, the NY Times reports, "The Bloomberg administration has stopped charging rent to homeless people who have income and live in city shelters, temporarily suspending a state-mandated program that has been marked by mismanagement and the threat of a lawsuit." The city started collecting rent because of a 1997 state law that hadn't been enforced; recently, the state asked the city to enforce it and pay back $2.4 million in homeless aid. Apparently there were "technical issues" (some notices had errors in how much rent was owed, some notices weren't sent to other families) and the city still hopes to have some sort of rent program. Still, some homeless residents said they were being charged more than 50% of their income (which isn't allowed), they weren't even notified and that this prevents them for saving up to move out of the shelter one day. The Legal Aid Society, which threatened to sue, said, "We would hope that the entire concept would be re-evaluated." more ›

Crown Heights is up in arms about a Manhattan center for homeless men moving in. The NY Sun reports on the intake center, currently housed at Bellevue and which may move to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter. At a community board meeting this week, the residents expressed their anger, one stating: "Now that we can walk outside without getting shot, you've decided to throw sand back on our heads." Others fear the neighborhood fall victim to an increase in crime and a decrease in the value of the brownstones. A homeless man who has been to the Armory Shelter said he's "seen people openly shoot heroin, shoot crack, smoke weed" there and that placing the city's main intake hub in the dysfunctional facility "is totally and utterly absurd." The plan still needs to be approved by the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. more ›