Posted on September 30, 2015 by Noel King in Marketplace Marketplace, By Noel King As New Yorkers face rising rents and stagnant wages, the city has seen a spike in homelessness. Around 60,000 New Yorkers currently live in municipal shelters. They are guaranteed a “Right to Shelter” that stems from an unprecedented 35-year-old lawsuit. In 1979, Robert Hayes, a 26-year-old newly minted securities and anti-trust litigator with the white-shoe firm of Sullivan & Cromwell brought a class-action lawsuit on behalf of homeless New Yorkers. Hayes was a lawyer who had retained a habit from his days as a young journalist: He chatted with people he met on the street. In the late ’70s, those included homeless men who lived on the streets around NYU School of Law.
