Federal Health Authorities Warn Against Dispersing Homeless Without Refuge Posted on May 20, 2020 by Claudia Irizarry Aponte in The City As City Hall struggles to house hundreds of homeless New Yorkers ejected nightly from shut-down subways, federal health authorities have weighed in with a warning: unsheltered homeless people should stay put unless they get a safe place to go. The U.S. Centers ..Read More
America’s Cities Could House Everyone if They Chose To Posted on May 15, 2020 by Binyamin Appelbaum in The New York Times Tonight, more than half a million Americans will sleep in public places because they lack private spaces. They will huddle in crowded New York City shelters, or pitch tents under highways in Washington, D.C., or curl up in the doorways of San Francisco office ..Read More
De Blasio: Just 3 percent of homeless booted from subways remain in shelters Posted on May 14, 2020 by Julia Marsh in New York Post Just over 100 homeless people out of 3,333 approached by cops and outreach workers as they left the subway system during the overnight shutdowns have remained in shelters, Mayor Bill de Blasio admitted Thursday. Between May 6, when the system first shuttered f ..Read More
‘Literally a Lifeline:’ Doctors Without Borders Is Getting Cell Phones to Homeless People so They Can Stay Connected During Coronavirus Posted on May 14, 2020 by Emma Ockerman in VICE Doctors Without Borders is known globally for dispatching its medical teams and logistical services to impoverished war-torn, famine-stricken, disaster-plagued countries that need life-saving services, fast. So when it set up shop in New York City at the onset ..Read More
Homeless Sent from Subways to Social Distancing Nightmares Posted on May 14, 2020 by Greg B. Smith in The City It’s around 2 o’clock in the morning and the beige marble lobby of the 30th Street Men’s Shelter in Manhattan has filled up with more than 20 homeless men just expelled from the city’s subways, trying to get some sleep. They are, to put it charitably, ..Read More
Governor Cuomo Owes Subway Riders and Homeless New Yorkers A Housing Plan Posted on May 13, 2020 by Danny Pearlstein and Giselle Routhier in Gotham Gazette The subway is New York’s circulatory system. If it doesn’t recover, New York won’t. But reopening the subway and the city means more than running more trains: It also means helping homeless New Yorkers who today have nowhere else safe to go. ..Read More
Traveling With NYC’s Homeless to See What Happens When the Subways Shut Down Posted on May 13, 2020 by Courtney Gross in NY1 Just after midnight, an entire transit system is winding down. A train ride to some, it’s called home to others. In an hour, it will close. The unprecedented move to shut down the subway for overnight cleaning is thrusting hundreds of the city’s homeless ..Read More
Why I slept on the subways: They were a safer refuge than shelters for homeless the public holds in contempt Posted on May 12, 2020 by Denis Dugan in New York Daily News I was upset when I heard the announcement that the subways would be shut down overnight — not only because I have been sleeping on the subways for two years, but because of the dehumanizing language used to refer to myself and other homeless New Yorkers. Wit ..Read More
The Coalition for the Homeless Responds to the COVID-19 Crisis Posted on May 12, 2020 The COVID-19 crisis pushed countless more New Yorkers into homelessness at the same time that many frontline services had to suspend operations. To meet the tremendous surge in need on the streets, the Coalition for the Homeless has been working 24/7 to bring ..Read More
