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Cross posted at Our World Report.
Photo: Adrian Miles / Flickr.
In an amazingly callous decision, one of the country’s richest individuals, Mayor Bloomberg has ended the low income housing subsidies in New York City. Ending subsidies has resulted in thousands of families with children as well as disabled people to reenter the city’s shelter system or contend with life on the street.
In most instances they were given 3 days to vacate their formerly subsidized apartments. A few have delays up to 30 days while they wait for court rulings regarding the legality of the Bloomberg decision. The rulings are not anticipated to offer relief and in most cases will come after people have been forced out of their homes.
Mayor Bloomberg seems to have an attitude that poverty is a personality flaw and hence somehow the fault of the poor. This in the face of many working families that are simply unable to afford the high housing costs in NYC. The disparity between wages and rents, if not the highest in the country is certainly close. The Mayor’s office has stated that ending housing subsidies was unavoidable because of budgetary problems faced by the city. But this is absolutely disingenuous as the cost of supporting a family in a shelter is $36,000 annually and the average rent subsidy is approximately $10,000 a year.
The shelter population increased 10% to an all-time high of over 43,000, with homeless children accounting for 17,000. During Bloomberg’s tenure the homeless population has grown by nearly 40%. It is hard to figure out Bloomberg’s motivation, especially in light of the higher cost to the city of shelter occupancy. Punitive? Resentment? Perhaps he’s just catering to his landlord friends so they are free to charge even higher rental rates. Or maybe it amounts to the simple goal that the homeless population will lose all hope and leave the city to the more affluent occupants. Whatever his rationale, he should feel ashamed of himself, if that’s an available emotion for him considering his sociopathic history.
You can download the full report: State of the Homeless 2012, by the Coalition for the Homeless.
12 Comments
FeetToDaFire–
Sounds like an expansion of the “gentrification on steroids” program, that the Clinton Administration HUD “reforms” put into place.
Remember how the American Jobs Act allows the states to now impose work requirements on recipients of UE benefits (based on welfare “workfare” programs, and the very limited, and unsuccessful Georgia UE pilot program)?. Seems that this Administration is not planning to stop at implementing radical overhauls of UE benefits, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Case in Point: Check out the C-span video of the Senate Finance Committee (chaired by faux Democrat, Senator Max Baucus) held on Tuesday, June 5th. You can locate the video by looking for the title: Combating Poverty: Understanding New Challenges for Families.
Fascinating testimony, especially by “liberal Brookings” fellow, Ron Haskins, who proudly (along with his co-hort, Isabel Sawhill) always preaches “blame the victims.”
KEY POINT: Baucus’ committee appears to accept the concept put forward by Haskins that the SNAP (Food Stamps Program) and Subsidized Housing Program should not only be means-tested, but should have a “work requirement” for the beneficiaries. I don’t recall the mention of exemptions for the elderly, or the mentally or physically incapacitated, so I can’t speak to that.
Sounds to me that, after this Administration (along with their Chief Performance Officer, Jeffrey Zients) gets finished with the “streamlining” of government, we may well see “soup lines” forming.
BTW, it was Zients’ recommendation that led to the Social Security Administration’s cutting off of the Annual Social Security Benefit Statements last spring, ostensibly to save money.
Blue
The United States, unfortunately, resembles an old, feeble edifice riddled with and visibly being consumed by internal social discord, endemic political corruption, and ethical decay:
Sooner or later the structure must collapse under its own weight, or will be condemned as unfit for human habitation and demolished to make way for a new, humane social contract.
Either way, the present system is a farcical parody of a democratic nation-state dedicated to the life, liberty, freedom, and happiness of all of its people.
Think of it as nation-state Darwinism: evolve or perish.
Oops!
Should be . . . this Administration is now planning . . .
Blue
The poor and the unemployed are to be increasingly demonized and even blamed for the countries woes. Why? Because, they are powerless to fight back and therefore are the perfect scapegoats for the countries seemingly unending troubles. I expect we’ll be seeing debtor prisons soon as well. The LONG DEPRESSION stretches on with no end in sight. Certainly you didn’t expect the 1% to accept any blame for the economic debacle did you? God loves them that’s why their rich , didn’t you know? He hates the poor and we should all understand that. As for what Jesus would have said. He’d certainly have thrown the poor out of their hovels unless they had $$ for the landlord its right there in A.Rand 21:7.
FeetToDaFire–
My apology to you, for not adding–your diary is excellent.
Highly recommended.
Blue
Thanks for managing to post a halfway objective diary about Bloomberg’s shocking and offensive indifference to human suffering. Hey, Mike: Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of heaven before you.
Soon the Soup Kitchens will be raided as if it is a protest. Seems the only thing stopping then is enough money to feed and shelter with enough Guards and Guns. Your Crime ? You are poor are you ?
Bloomberg’s actions are … well… indecent.
If there is such a thing as karma, may he have the strength to endure all that he is imposing on each and every one of his fellow human beings that are effected.
(Karma, I hear, can be a bitch.)
One can only hope…
Why would THEY want to inform us of what benefits we have earned, considering that we are now to believe that SS is something given to us with great difficulty and as a result of government largess.
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion and your compliment. It’s much appreciated
Whoever added the photo, thanks. Your choice of photos fits the old axiom of being worth a thousand words.
I’m not sure about tax collectors but prostitutes… no doubt. A bit of trivia (although not trivial): I had the honor of knowing a physician named Walter Alvarez. He is considered the father of gastroenterology. Dr. Alvarez was an intern in San Francisco in 1906 during the infamous San Francisco earthquake. He told me that a large contingent of prostitutes acted as first responders, doing everything they could to rescue people and get the injured to local hospitals. He spoke very admiringly about their singular effort. He is also credited with being, if not the first, one of the first in the medical profession to publicly state (and publish) that homosexuality is not a disease. Just thought you might be interested…