Mayor De Blasio Analysis

Homelessness has been a prevalent and contentious topic since its public emergence in the 1980’s. In fact, according to the most recent estimates, on any given night in the United States, there are roughly 645,000 people residing in homeless shelters or unsheltered street locations (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2011). And based on a local study done by the Mental Health Unit at the Houston Police Department in 2011, Houston has the largest homeless population in Texas and the eighth largest in the United States. While many great efforts have been put forth to aid the homeless population in Houston, “the public health epidemiology task of quantifying and tracking child and family homelessness over time has been complicated…by increasing rates of…shortages [in] affordable housing” (Grant et al., 2013), and restrictions on temporary encampments (Loftus-Ferren, 2013). In order to successfully reduce, prevent and combat homelessness, more policies must be put in place to create sustainable, affordable housing for homeless families and to modify current laws that harm homeless individuals.

“One diverse population that has continued to increase over the quarter of a century is composed of people who are homeless” (Baggerly & Zalaquett, 2006, p.155). Homelessness has become a growing problem in society because more and more people are finding themselves to be homeless and not knowing where to turn. Many people do not

Homeless is not just an issue in the city of San Diego but throughout the entire country. An unimaginable situation that happens to countless people all across America. According to Social Solutions, “Over 564,708 people in the U.S. are homeless...over half a million people were living on the streets, in cars, in homeless shelters, or in subsidized transitional housing during a one-night national survey last January. Of that number, 206,286 were people in families, 358,422 were individuals, and a quarter of the entire group were children” (2016’s Shocking). Clearly, homelessness is a major problem that affected over half a million people just last year. Most

Every New Yorker has the right to a safe and affordable place to live in. New York’s shortage of affordable housing has reached a crisis point. Poor and elderly people throughout New York City are at a greater risk of homelessness and forced low-income residents do not have food or medical care to stay in their homes. A sinful structure of homelessness in New York City is New York’s shortage of affordable housing. Millions of New Yorkers are desperate to find affordable housing and tens of thousands are forced to live either in dirty shelters or on the streets. Recent data indicates that nearly 60,000 people, including more than 23,000 children, stay in the city’s main homeless shelter system (Guelpa). A small amount of poor renter households received a housing subsidy from the local government. Little assistance is being provided which means that most poor families and individuals that seek assistance

One of the causes of homelessness in Baltimore City is lack of affordable housing, this includes subsidized housing from the state. Lack of affordable housing in Baltimore City is due to an increase luxury housing and Baltimore’s decrease desire for rental housing (Mayor’s Office of Human Services, 2013). Available housing is not proportional to the wages of people living in Baltimore City. Nearly half of renters in Baltimore spend 35% of their income or more on their rent. The waiting list for Baltimore City opened in 2014 and 74,000 households applied for 25,000 available slots for up to six years to own a voucher (“Homelessness in Baltimore,” 2017). For the extremely poor population there are only 42 available homes for over 100 people who identify with the population (Public Justice Center, 2015). Therefore, Baltimore needs to make affordable housing for their population or there should be an increase in jobs and wages. However, the private sector is not interested in developing houses for the low-income population because it is not profitable compared to selling a building to a company to make luxury housing (Richman, 2015).

According to the state of New York, approximately thirty thousand families were living at shelters in 2012. I am not ashamed to say that my family and I were included in those statistics. For the past three years, the percentage of families in shelters around New York City have increased. Growing up in The Bronx was extremely challenging for adolescents due to the amount of drugs and crime. Many families are receiving help from the city and still can not afford housing or food. Homelessness has also increased, creating every corner a new home. Although I have faced countless issues growing up, I have been taught an infinite amount of lessons. I have learned that failure is not always a bad thing in life, achievements include hard work and

Today, Homelessness in the US is becoming one of the top challenging issues to fix. Recent available data shows an increase the number of the homeless between 2014 and 2015. On a single night in January 2014, 578,424 people were experiencing Homelessness — meaning they were sleeping outside or in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program. From 2014 to 2015, a period of ongoing recovery from the Great Recession, overall homelessness decreased by 2.3 percent and Homelessness decreased among every major subpopulation: unsheltered persons (10 percent), families (2.7 percent), chronically Homeless individuals (2.5 percent), and veterans (10.5 percent). Yet a recent report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, says homelessness decreased by nearly 4% over the past year.. The reports shows:

Last month, the Obama administration released a plan designed to end homelessness in 10 years. The goal reflects new optimism among academics and advocates that homelessness is not an intractable feature of urban life, as it has sometimes seemed, but a problem that can be solved. This belief is fueled by recent research debunking a number of long-standing myths about homelessness in America -- and showing that many of our old policies were unwittingly making the problem worse.

Homelessness will always be a very hard battle to fight. Prior to 2008, things were looking good for homeless advocates. In 2005 to 2007, the number of the chronically homeless dropped about 30 percent (Fagan 1). This shows improvement in the prevention of homelessness, along with the assistance to get people out of homelessness. Although this does show improvement, this report was conducted prior to the economic down fall of the U.S. economy in 2008, which completely changed these statistics.

3) Re-strengthening the support programs for homeless - supporting programs like short-term rent assistance to families about to be evicted, hotel vouchers for homeless women and children and low income housing was another step taken by the Mayor.

The New York Homeless Coalition reported that among those who live in shelters or in transitional housing 57% of New York City’s homeless are African American (as of March 2014). The rest of the homeless population living in shelters or in transitional housing are 31% Hispanic, 8% white, 1% Asian-American, 4% unknown race/ethnicity. The chart in Figure 3 is constructed to illustrate the relationship of total NYC population versus total homeless population in

According to Newman and Wyly, Rapid gentrification has put incredible burden on low-income residents. Tenants, advocates, and community leaders have stated that displacement put much strain for the low-income, working class, elderly and immigrant communities of New York city. Community leaders report that residents often double- or triple-up with family and friends, become homeless or move into the city shelter system, or move out of the city.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and his administration are not focusing on the homeless youth but rather focus on homeless veterans, homeless families and homeless people with severe mental illness. Homeless youth in New York City are the most invisible. There is an interesting stat from SafeHorizon research that reveals every year nearly 5,000 homeless youth will die because of assault, illness, or suicide while trying to survive. According to Shatiera Freeman, a person who was interviewed about the homeless youth issue believes homeless young were forced to be adults. Mayor Bill de Blasio is promising that all homeless young people would all have beds but the efforts are not good enough. The city needs to create more specialized shelters for homeless

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is might easily win a second term, all thanks to the state and federal prosecutors clearing two separate year-long probes into his campaign fundraising practices.

In addition to Hazel story, news of the poorest city in America, Camden, New Jersey, has also risen. The federal government requires all states to have a homeless count every other year in order to fund homeless services, and this year in Camden, CNN brought homelessness into the spotlight. CNN interviewed with Michael Powell, a homeless man who lives on the outskirts of one of the “tent cities” that surveyors often find, and discovered that Michael Powell, and some others, had never been accounted for in the homeless count. In fact, Michael Powell did not know that a count even existed. “’It's set up to be kind of an impossible task,’ said Maria Foscarinis, founder of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. She said one way to get more accurate findings would be to extend the count over a longer period of time or to do multiple counts per year.” (Ellis 1) However, this may never happen because federal assistance and programs that provide assistance to the needy are experiencing cuts in their fund.