New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday presented a plan to provide, by 2024, a roof over all those who have lived on the streets for a long time, with transitional beds and apartments.
In addition to the 4,000 New Yorkers sleeping in the streets, some 60,000 people, including 21,640 children, are welcomed daily in one of the shelters in the largest city in the United States. This is 10,000 more than in 2013.
The US Department of Housing (HUD) even estimated the homeless population in New York at 78,676, according to a report released in 2018.
The plan announced Tuesday is part of the municipal Home-Stat program, launched in 2016 to improve care for homeless people in New York.
Thousands of additional beds
Democrat Bill de Blasio, who prides himself on wanting to reduce inequalities in New York, notably indicated that the city’s religious authorities would put five additional sites at the service of the device, likely to offer 1,000 more beds.
These would be temporary shelters, which should be installed during 2020 and will be in addition to the 1,800 beds already available in the program. The plan also provides for the provision of 1,000 permanent housing units.
The town hall has also reinforced the teams responsible for making contact with the homeless in the street and in the metro, in order to increase its efficiency.
“We are not saying that you will never see a homeless person on the street again”
It is a “plan to end street life in New York once and for all,” Bill de Blasio said at a press conference. He nevertheless warned that this plan was mainly aimed at long-term homeless people. “We’re not saying you will never see a homeless person on the street again. “
In a full year, the plan is expected to cost around $ 100 million per year, the mayor said.
According to the town hall, 2,450 people have already left the streets thanks to the Home-Stat program.
The announcement comes a few days after the city of Newark (New Jersey) sued its neighbor New York, accusing her of having regularly placed homeless New Yorkers in her home, in substandard apartments, as part of from another program. New York announced on December 9 that it was temporarily suspending placements in Newark.
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