“Outreach workers have requested more pop-up homeless outreach sites. We think the Stanton Building could serve that purpose. We have a crisis. Intelligently shared resources must be committed to solve the reality of climate change and the burgeoning homeless population. As we take the (realistically) slow but concrete and steady steps to end these crises, these are rational and humane ways forward.
We get a park anchor for safety, a community meeting site in the evenings, a climate resiliency lab and emergency hub, a youth after-school training center in all things ‘Green’. Everyone wins. No one is left behind.” – SDR Coalition.
From Politico NY:
“An annual count of the city’s unsheltered population showed a 40 percent increase in homeless people on city streets, despite the efforts of the de Blasio administration to curb the rising rate of homelessness.
…It was the largest number since 2005, when the city first began estimating the unsheltered population.
“The de Blasio administration has dramatically increased funding for services for unsheltered homeless people, increasing funding by 250% since 2013 …
[Commissioner Steve] Banks said these services will have their full effect this year, as 260 more Safe Haven beds … 500 new supportive housing units, and the increased outreach staff will be in the field long enough to have developed relationships with homeless people. He said it takes on average five months to develop a relationship and bring someone in off the street.
“To us the most important thing is…the individuals that we are working with on a daily basis to bring them in off the streets,” Banks said. He noted that outreach teams helped 748 individuals come in off the streets last year.
The estimated number of unsheltered homeless people confirms what outreach teams…were seeing… The teams have a list of more than 2,000 individuals who they know by name and a list of more than 1,500 additional individuals they know of and are trying to work with.
…One goal and product of the increased outreach funding was to identify every unsheltered homeless person and have them included in the city’s caseload.”
