One Percent of Children Born Last Year Went Home to a New York City Homeless Shelter: Report

One out of every 100 babies born last year was sent home from the hospital to a New York City homeless shelter, a study from the Coalition for the Homeless found.

The striking number comes from the homeless advocacy’s annual State of Homeless report, released early Wednesday morning, which heavily criticizes Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s measures combating homelessness. 

According to the report, the number of people sleeping in city shelters has dramatically gone up by 143% from 7,700 in December of 2009 to 18,700 in December of 2019. The report does recognize something positive, that those numbers have leveled off over the last three years. In December 2019, 14,792 families slept in shelters, a 7% drop from November of 2016 when the number of families sleeping in shelters reached an all-time high of 15,899. Still, the number represented a 46% increase from 2009 data.