------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 6, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
NEW YORK: HOMELESSNESS REACHES LEVELS OF GREAT DEPRESSION By Heather Cottin A scourge is haunting the capital of capitalism: homelessness. Not since the Great Depression has New York City seen such growth in the number of families and individuals who turn to the overcrowded municipal homeless shelters for refuge. In a report titled "State of the Homeless 2003," the New York Coalition for the Homeless has revealed the appalling fact that homelessness has grown by over 200 percent since the housing crisis first reappeared during the Reagan era. The decision by banks and city government to decrease New York's affordable low-income housing stock has favored landlords and forced thousands into destitution since the 1980s, even as the economy was booming for most of this time. The report indicates that homelessness primarily affects families with children. This winter children composed 50 percent of New York City's homeless. Children and families made up 79 per cent of those seeking shelter last year--double what it was five years ago. Home less ness among individuals has risen as well. One way the city deals with families facing homelessness is to purchase temporary housing in the form of "scattered site units." That is a euphemism for the practice of paying landlords $100 a night to house families. Landlords then turn the families out on the streets. They are forced right back into the fetid homeless shelters, which are unable to handle the growing numbers of poor and working people who can no longer afford to pay rent. By supporting the landlords at $3,000 a month per apartment, the city is contributing to the housing crisis for the poor. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is effectively reducing the number of apartment units available at reasonable rents. Rental prices are thus artificially manipulated up ward, simultaneously creating more home essness and more profit for the mayor's landlord constituency. The number of low-rent apartments in New York City shrank from over 1 million to fewer than 500,000 in the 1990s. Because of a 1981 court ruling, Callahan vs. Carey, the administration of Rudolph Giuliani was prevented in 2000 from evicting homeless people from New York City shelters. The court had ruled that individuals who face "physical, mental or social dysfunction" have the right to temporary haven in a public shelter. Bloomberg has decided to ignore the ruling, and force homeless adults out of the shelters and into the streets after 30 days. Bloomberg, like Giuliani before him, would evict men and women, many of whom are veterans or mentally disabled. Charles Dickens would find Bloom berg's scheme to break up destitute families incredible. The plan would place all homeless children in foster homes and throw their parents out into the streets. Bloomberg, a multi-billionaire, is displaying the depravity of capitalism and the transparent superficiality of the bourgeois class, which pretends to care about "family values." The report says there are now 40,000 homeless in New York City. That's an 82 percent increase over 1998. The cost of one day of war on Iraq could provide comfortable apartments for all of them, with plenty left over for other social needs. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
