Posted on May 11, 2015 by Jacquelyn Simone With more than 60,000 New Yorkers sleeping in homeless shelters every night, it is imperative that our elected leaders prioritize strategies to effectively combat the unprecedented crisis. Mayor de Blasio has taken another important step to try to meet the challenge, as evidenced in several components of his fiscal year 2016 budget. The Mayor’s new budget, announced last week, includes $100 million toward fighting homelessness. That number is a good start, and a smart move considering the tremendous financial and emotional cost of keeping men, women and kids in the City’s often-squalid shelters. A strengthened rental assistance program will hopefully move more than 7,000 families and individuals out of homeless shelters and into stable, permanent homes, reducing the number of children currently languishing in cramped shelters. The Huffington Post summarized the budget: Funding will also go toward anti-eviction legal services, expansion of shelter beds for homeless youth and boosting resources for mental health services. The commitment is part of a fiscal year 2016 budget totaling $78.3 billion. Curbing the crisis has become a priority for de Blasio, as the Big Apple grapples with record-high levels of homelessness. According to city records, there were 59,068 people living in shelters in December, the New York Daily News reported. De Blasio has made efforts to provide affordable housing to more New Yorkers, including a move to create 200,000 such units throughout the five boroughs in the next decade. “Affordable housing is part of the bedrock of what makes New York City work,” the mayor points out in his plan of action. “It’s what underpins the economically diverse neighborhoods New Yorkers want to live in. It’s critical to providing financial stability for working families, helping them get ahead and build a better life.” To his credit, de Blasio inherited a dire situation, advocates have pointed out: Homelessness grew by 71 percent under his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. But the problem has worsened on de Blasio’s watch, too.
