Posted on September 1, 2015 by Matt Flegenheimer, Nikita Stewart and Mireya Navarro in The New York Times The New York Times, By Matt Flegenheimer, Nikita Stewart and Mireya Navarro In mid-July, facing a swelling public outcry over street homelessness in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested that residents’ eyes were deceiving them. “Homelessness is not going up, thank God,” he said. Weeks later, Mr. de Blasio seems to have abandoned that notion. The mayor and his team have seized on the issue in public and in private, discussing a series of changes intended to stem the crisis, amid negative headlines and poll numbers that showed dissatisfaction with his handling of the problem.
