Year: 2015

Tyra Gardner knew the meal she and her two sons were likely to be sharing this Thanksgiving in the Brooklyn shelter they call home wouldn’t be anything fancy. She stood Tuesday in the middle of a waiting room in St. John’s Bread and Life Soup Kitch ..Read More

She was crying so hard, she could barely breathe. It made me stop in my tracks during what was an otherwise routine shelter visit. Once I was able to hold the 4-year-old girl, calm her, help her name her stuffed animal (the lion became “Lucy” over the cour ..Read More

Jonathan Weber spent years living on the streets of New York City. Now, he is documenting what that life was like using photography. He’s one of 14 participants in a programme called “Through the Eyes of the Homeless,” which pairs professiona ..Read More

German Rosa was sleeping on the subway until a homeless outreach organization helped him into transitional housing. From the window of his new room in Washington Heights, he photographed the city skyline. The view looked like Paris, he explained. That picture ..Read More

More than two dozen state senators are calling on Governor Andrew Cuomo to fund the construction of 35,000 units of supportive housing. These are units that would house homeless individuals trying to cope with mental illness or addiction in an effort to break ..Read More

During a lengthy and emotional press conference on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, unveiled the city’s mental health roadmap, a mix of new policies, increased funding and aspirational goals that, if successfully implemented, w ..Read More

John Schiumo hosts the November 18, 2015 episode of The Call. I’m happy to see the City furthering its efforts to help more people who are without homes. It’s also reassuring to see the Mayor referring to the units he announced funding for today as “supp ..Read More

The chairman of the state Assembly Social Services Committee on Sunday called on Gov. Cuomo to tap into $2.1 billion the state has collected from legal settlements to help address the city’s growing homeless problem. Days after Mayor de Blasio announced a pl ..Read More

Despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s early move to increase funding for unsheltered homeless people, that population appears to be growing faster than the city’s efforts to address its needs. De Blasio has expanded outreach teams that contact and develop ..Read More