NY City homeless population hits all time high in Jan. 2013, 50,000 per night in shelters, homeless families up 73% in NYC since 2002. Must be the smaller sodas

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3/5/13, "Record 50k in city’s shelters," NY Post, Todd Venezia

"The number of homeless people in New York City shelters set a record in January, averaging 50,000 people per night for the fist time ever."...

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3/4/13, "New York City Leads Jump in Homeless," Wall St. Journal, Michael Howard Saul

"An average of more than 50,000 people slept each night in New York City's homeless shelters for the first time in January, a record that underscores an unsettling national trend: a rising number of families without permanent housing.

Families have become a larger share of the nation's homeless population, growing 1.4% from 2011 to 2012, after their numbers fell as the economy emerged from recession. 

In Boston, authorities said there were 1,166 homeless families in December 2012, up 7.8% from the previous year. In Washington, D.C., homeless families grew 18% from 2011 to 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

The numbers in New York, however, are starker, according to a report to be published Tuesday by the Coalition for the Homeless, a New York advocacy group, citing New York City government figures.

More than 21,000 children—an unprecedented 1% of the city's youth—slept each night in a city shelter in January, an increase of 22% in the past year, the report said, while homeless families now spend more than a year in a shelter, on average, for the first time since 1987. In January, an average of 11,984 homeless families slept in shelters each night, a rise of 18% from a year earlier. 

"New York is facing a homeless crisis worse than any time since the Great Depression," said Mary Brosnahan, president of the Coalition for the Homeless....

New York City has seen one of the steepest increases in homeless families in the past decade, advocates said, growing 73% since 2002. The surge was accelerated by the financial crisis and mortgage meltdown, which put many lower-middle class families out of their homes, economists have said. And even though New York City has regained all the jobs it lost in the recession, economists have said they are lower-paying ones. 

The steep rise has reignited questions about whether New York's economic turnaround of the past two decades has helped the city's poorest residents. Aides to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent whose three terms have seen big increases in homelessness, partially blamed the surge on the economy.

"The economy is nowhere near where it was," said Seth Diamond, commissioner of the city's Department of Homeless Services. He pointed to the end of a state-funded program that subsidized rent for people leaving shelters, which ended in spring 2011; homeless families have gone up 35% since, according to shelter records."...

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2/19/13, "Mayor Draws Fire With Remark on Homelessness," Wall St. Journal, Michael Howard Saul

"It was a multipart answer to a query about whether New York City homeless shelters were needlessly turning people away. But with his concluding line, Mayor Michael Bloomberg provoked a host of new questions and a deluge of criticism.

"Nobody's sleeping on the streets," Mr. Bloomberg said Tuesday at the tail end of a news conference.
In fact, more than 3,200 people were living on the streets in 2012 by the city's own count, and Mr. Bloomberg's comments may have unintentionally shined a light on their rising numbers."...

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3/4/13, "Mayor Bloomberg's net worth jumps $5B, making him 13th richest person on planet," NY Post, D. Seifman




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