Trump’s Budget Cuts Deeply Into Medicaid and Anti-Poverty Efforts Posted on May 22, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in The New York Times President Trump plans to unveil on Tuesday a $4.1 trillion budget for 2018 that would cut deeply into programs for the poor, from health care and food stamps to student loans and disability payments, laying out an austere vision for reordering the nation’s p ..Read More
Under Settlement, City Shelters Will Do More for the Disabled Posted on May 18, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in The New York Times New York City’s homeless services agency, under a settlement reached this week, has agreed to do more to accommodate homeless people who are disabled. The Center for Independence of the Disabled, one of the groups that filed the class-action lawsuit, counts ..Read More
Stresses of Shelter Life Rip Homeless Families Apart, Study Finds Posted on May 16, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in DNAinfo A record 23,000 children — nearly half of whom are under 6 — are now living in the city’s shelter system, and more often than not, their families are placed in shelters far from their communities, according to a new report from the Center for New Yor ..Read More
A Fresh Take on Ending the Jail-to-Street-to-Jail Cycle Posted on May 10, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in The Marshall Project George Washington (not the famous one) first ended up in a New York homeless shelter in the mid-1980s, after he came home from prison for robbery and crack cocaine hit the streets. Since then, he’s passed between girlfriends’ houses, hotels, shelters all o ..Read More
New York’s Mayor Vowed to Help the Homeless. Why Is the Crisis Growing? Posted on May 9, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in The Nation No one really knows how many homeless people there are in New York City, and no one ever has. The city’s official “daily census” tallies the population in the homeless-shelter system, but fails to count thousands of other New Yorkers living under borrowe ..Read More
How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality Posted on May 9, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in The New York Times Magazine The son of a minister, Ohene Asare grew up poor. His family immigrated from Ghana when he was 8 and settled down in West Bridgewater, Mass., a town 30 miles south of Boston, where he was one of the few black students at the local public school. “It was us an ..Read More
Congress Can’t Afford to Cut Housing for the Mentally Ill Posted on May 5, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in CityLab As Congress considers the federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2018 to reduce funding for services to poor and homeless Americans, programs with proven cost-effectiveness should not be on the chopping block. One such program is supportive housing for homele ..Read More
Homeless Performer Faces Uphill Battle From Shelter to Spotlight Posted on May 1, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in DNAinfo Wearing just a hint of eye makeup and a modest necklace on top of a simple white T-shirt, Freddie Cosmo took to the stage last Wednesday at famed gay bar Stonewall Inn for several songs during a show for charity. His friend and the club’s flamboyant ente ..Read More
Tenants with Housing Vouchers Deserve a Roof Over Their Head Posted on April 27, 2017 by Jacquelyn Simone in City Limits “It’s not fair,” a single father said. “Landlords assume you’re a drug addict or something just because you’re using a housing voucher to pay rent. They treat you like you’re less than human when you mention you have a Section 8 voucher.” “Ev ..Read More
