Stringer Issues Scathing Report On Homeless Shelter System; De Blasio Vows To Take Action
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A damning new report slamming conditions in city homeless shelters had Mayor Bill de Blasio scurrying Wednesday to announce a plan to fix the system.
As CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, the new report documented why the homeless prefer sleeping on the streets to going to shelters – even in frigid temperatures.
On Wednesday morning, it was a bone-chilling 26 degrees. New Yorkers on their way to work were forced to walk around a homeless man who turned Broadway into his own personal cot rather than going to a city shelter.
"I'm horrified," said city Comptroller Scott Stringer. "I've made no secret of it."
Stringer said he now has the facts and figures to prove the homeless are telling the truth when they boycott city shelters, because they are dirty and unsafe.
"I don't like shelters, because shelters are like prisons," Orlando Vance, who is homeless, said on Tuesday. "You live in a shelter, you live with criminals, crazy people, people that don't want to wash."
Stringer found that city shelters are rife with life-threatening violations.
A whopping 18,704 housing and building code violations were recorded at shelters, including serious hazards such as rats, peeling lead paint, and broken smoke detectors. A total of 9 percent of family shelters and apartments for homeless families have at least one serious violation.
"Twenty-three hundred children tonight will sleep in these disgusting, rat-infested shelters in the city of New York – the greatest city; the city with the greatest economic power," Stringer said.
Published reports also documented shelter violence, with a total of 783 attacks on staff and residents in Fiscal Year 2015.
"A homeless person not willing to go into a shelter is a sign of sanity because they're so dirty and dangerous," Gov. Andrew Cuomo told CBS2's Kramer. "It is unacceptable. It has to change. If those shelters are as dirty and dangerous as they are, you will never get people off the streets."
Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has repeatedly acknowledged that the shelter system needed to be improved, revealed a new plan to identify and fix problems with the city's sprawling, 500-shelter system Wednesday.
"I've been clear that our shelters should be safe; should be clean for anyone who's homeless," the mayor said at a news conference. "We know that not just for years, but for decades, that has not been the case."
The mayor added in a statement: "We have already taken steps to improve conditions, but as a result we have learned that more is needed. So we have developed a systematic and thorough program to ensure that problems are promptly identified and fixed and that there is monitoring to make sure the repairs are done correctly and on time. I don't want anyone refusing to come into a homeless shelter because of bad conditions."
The city will increase the number of shelter inspections and establish a rapid repair program. Aides said the new plan would improve upon the work done by the city's Shelter Repair Squad, which has cleared more than 12,000 health and safety violations in the structures since May.
The mayor is also allocating $2 million for a hotline that will be established to report complaints.
Former Department of Homeless Services Deputy Commissioner Robert Mascali questioned the point of starting a new hotline.
"Another hotline? I don't think so. They have 311," he said. "I'd rather see the $2 million spent on increased security and increased maintenance."
Mascali also said the mayor should make some surprise visits to shelters to see the conditions for himself.
The mayor's announcement comes a day after de Blasio hired a new deputy mayor who will oversee the Department of Homeless Services and said the city will start phasing out the use of "cluster sites'' -- apartments rented by the city for homeless families, often at above-market rates -- as many of those have also fallen into disrepair.
Mayoral aides said the repair program was part of a 90-day review of the Department of Homeless Services ordered by the mayor when the agency's head resigned last month. But it also came the same day as Stringer's report.
As winter temperatures finally reached the Northeast, the city's homelessness crisis has engulfed City Hall and dominated local headlines. It has also become the latest front in the ongoing feud between de Blasio and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who issued an executive order this week requiring that all homeless people be pulled off the street, even involuntarily, if the temperature drops below 32 degrees.
City officials said they would not abide by that requirement and the governor's office later clarified that only homeless people who were in imminent danger or displayed signs of mental illness should be forcibly removed from the street.
Cuomo has also strongly hinted that he would soon announce that the state will take a role in fixing New York City's shelter system.
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