September 19, 2024 Coalition for the Homeless Today, Coalition for the Homeless Executive Director David Giffen issued the following statement on Mayor Adams’ recent release that applauses the record-breaking data permanent housing placements for homeless New Yorkers: “While we are happy to see the City increasing the number of people being helped to transition from shelters to permanent housing over the alarmingly low levels of the past few years, let’s remember that there are still 132,000 people sleeping in NYC shelters every night, including roughly 64,000 new arrivals and 68,000 homeless longer-term New Yorkers. The fact that there are more than 9,000 households with CityFHEPS vouchers still in shelters, and a vacancy rate of less than 0.4% in apartments renting for under $1,100 month, shows that this administration has really done nothing to address the lack of affordable housing in our city for those who need it most – which is the underlying cause of mass homelessness. We anxiously await a plan from the Mayor that will actually create the housing needed to finally end mass homelessness in New York City.”
