Dear S.,
The City’s own data confirm it: Homelessness in New York City is at record levels.
The cause? As our analysis in this year’s State of the Homeless report shows, Mayor Bloomberg’s failed homeless policies top the list.
New evidence shows that the Mayor's short-term, bureaucratic programs have become little more than a revolving door back to homelessness. The result is record shelter populations and thousands of families denied the chance to rebuild their lives.
Enough is enough. Please send a letter to Mayor Bloomberg right now, asking him to use what we know works – permanent, affordable housing – to fight the homelessness crisis he helped create.
Go to: http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/tell-mayor-1-in-3
Help us collect 500 letters by Friday, and we’ll deliver them directly to City Hall.
No matter how you cut it, the state of the homeless is the worst in New York City’s history: More than 113,000 homeless people slept in municipal shelters in Fiscal Year 2010, including a record 43,000 children, a 9% increase from 2009, and a 37% increase from when Mayor Bloomberg first took office.
But high unemployment and the housing crisis aren’t the only reasons. Mayor Bloomberg replaced proven Federal assistance with failed programs, like the time-limited Advantage subsidy, that have become a revolving door back to the shelter system for thousands of homeless families. In fact, according to the City’s data, nearly half of the record numbers of people entering shelters last year have been homeless before – almost double the ratebefore the Mayor put his failed programs in place.
We’re urging the Mayor to return to the time-tested practice of giving homeless families priority access to permanent, affordable housing options, like public housing and Federal housing vouchers.
Send your letter here: http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/tell-mayor-1-in-3
Mary Brosnahan
Executive Director
Coalition for the Homeless
PS – Read more about our “One in Three” Plan to Reduce Homelessness in our State of the Homeless report:http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/SOTH2011
