Acceptance Rate For Homeless Families At NYC Shelters Drops To Record Low
arrow A visitor arrives at the city s intake center for homeless families in the Bronx, New York in 2009 Bebeto Matthews/AP/Shutterstock
Last year, the percentage of New York City families deemed eligible to live in homeless shelters dropped to its lowest point during the de Blasio administration, according to recently released city data.
The city has always investigated whether families who apply for shelter are truly homeless, and even in normal times they reject a high number of applications. In November of 2014, during Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first year in office, the city determined that 50.2% of the families with children that applied were eligible.
arrow A doctor helps treat a homeless person in April 2020 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn Lev Radin/Pacific Press/Shutterstock
In addition to healthcare workers, people over 65, police, firefighters, and teachers, another critical population became eligible last week for coronavirus vaccines: Homeless people at high risk for infection.
New York State issued guidelines that said, starting last Monday, those who live in shelters “where sleeping, bathing or eating accommodations must be shared with individuals and families who are not part of the same household,” plus the staffers who work in these places, could get vaccinated.
That description includes shelters for single adults, where eight to 12 people on average share a room, as well as the hotels where many homeless individuals have been moved in recent months, according to service providers who’ve been briefed by the city’s Department of Homeless Services. Families with children who reside in shelters are not
arrow A homeless person in April 2020 Vanessa Carvalho/Shutterstock
Some 613 homeless New Yorkers died between July of 2019 and June of 2020, a 52% increase compared to the prior fiscal year, according to data released Tuesday by the de Blasio administration, a grim indicator of the effect of the coronavirus on people lacking permanent housing.
The largest number of those deaths occurred between April and June, when COVID-19 first began to bear down on the city. As infections grew and communities of color were devastated by the pandemic, so was the city’s vast shelter system, where single adults typically share a room with several others.
Company’s prefab homes helping homeless
Crews from Pallet Shelters move new pods into a homeless camp in Portland on Dec. 9. Portland this month assembled rows of the shelters in three ad-hoc “villages.” (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer)
By GILLIAN FLACCUS and MICHAEL HILL
Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) After three years on the streets, Tiecha Vannoy and her boyfriend Chris Foss plan to weather the pandemic this winter in a small white “pod” with electricity, heat and enough room for two.
Portland this month assembled neat rows of the shelters, which resemble garden sheds, in three ad-hoc “villages” part of an unprecedented effort unfolding in cold-weather cities nationwide to keep people without permanent homes safe as temperatures drop and coronavirus cases surge.
Surging coronavirus cases, plummeting temperatures challenge shelters Share Updated: 1:01 PM EST Dec 27, 2020 By GILLIAN FLACCUS and MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press
Surging coronavirus cases, plummeting temperatures challenge shelters Share Updated: 1:01 PM EST Dec 27, 2020
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Show Transcript We re here in Portland, right by downtown by the river. Uh, Camp three, CPO. It s called, uh, account for a coronavirus around this time right now for homeless. It s pretty pretty amazing. They re bringing in little tiny houses for everybody. Tiny houses or everybody s busy running around, uh, moving all their stuff, uh, getting everything ready. We have a really robust winter shelter system, a severe weather system, and in any other year we have, ah, theory that we don t want anyone who needs to come inside to be out in the cold. It makes it so much more difficult when you can t have big spaces with a lot of people in them ready with winte