Borg Refinery
Active member
- In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
- In July 2022, there were 52,137 homeless people, including 16,650 homeless children, sleeping each night in New York City’s main municipal shelter system. A near-record 18,940 single adults slept in shelters each night in July 2022.
- Over the course of City Fiscal Year 2021, 107,510 different homeless adults and children slept in the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelter system. This includes 31,947 homeless children.
- Families entering shelters predominantly come from a few clustered zip codes in the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. However, homeless families and single adults come from every community district in NYC prior to entering shelters.
- The number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is now 15 percent higher than it was 10 years ago. The number of homeless single adults is 87 percent higher than it was 10 years ago.
- Research shows that the primary cause of homelessness, particularly among families, is lack of affordable housing. Surveys of homeless families have identified the following major immediate, triggering causes of homelessness: eviction; doubled-up or severely overcrowded housing; domestic violence; job loss; and hazardous housing conditions.
- Research shows that, compared to homeless families, homeless single adults have higher rates of serious mental illness, addiction disorders, and other severe health problems.
- Each night thousands of unsheltered homeless people sleep on New York City streets, in the subway system, and in other public spaces. There is no accurate measurement of New York City’s unsheltered homeless population, and recent City surveys significantly underestimate the number of unsheltered homeless New Yorkers.
- Studies show that the large majority of unsheltered homeless New Yorkers are people living with mental illness or other severe health problems.
- Black and Hispanic/Latinx New Yorkers are disproportionately affected by homelessness. Approximately 56 percent of heads of household in shelters are Black, 32 percent are Hispanic/Latinx, 7 percent are White, less than 1 percent are Asian-American or Native American, and 4 percent are of unknown race/ethnicity.
- In City Fiscal Year 2021, the average length of stay in the DHS shelter system was 483 days for single adults, 520 days for families with children, and 773 days for adult families.
- In November 2019, DHS estimated that 77 percent of adult families, 68 percent of single adults, and 53 percent of families with children sleeping in shelters had at least one disability. (..)
There seems to be a lot of corruption in NYC and NY state among public officials and others in positions of responsibility, so that appears to be part of it:
Shelter Operator Cited for Nepotism Still Gets Millions in City Funds
New York officials found misspending by African American Planning Commission, which runs homeless shelters, but public money continued to flow.
That is absolutely inexcusable.