After reading the articles for today’s class, it seems like the increasing number of homeless people is connected largely to the issue addressed in the last class – a physical lack of housing units. With an increasing amount of people living on the streets, Mayor de Blasio proposed a solution to open 90 new homeless shelters by 2022, 20 of which were meant to be open by the end of 2017. However, the plan has fallen behind, as only 10 of the 20 shelters were opened in the past year, as it has taken “longer than expected” to obtain building permits, find shelter locations, and negotiate rates with nonprofit workers.
New York City’s plan to construct homeless shelters appears to be a band-aid solution, and does not strike through the causes of the increasing homeless population in the city.
But aside from the obvious struggles in keeping up with the pace of the project plan, there is a bigger sustainability issue in play. The city is now spending money to build homeless shelters instead of affordable housing units. This is effectively a band-aid solution, one that does not reach the core causes of the homeless crisis affecting New York City. Shelters, by nature, can only be temporary solutions, and once they reach capacity, it can become difficult to maintain them. This situation also reminds me of Pruitt-Igoe, where failure to upkeep newly constructed buildings led to the degradation of the living standards in the community. If this same scenario plays out in New York City’s homeless shelters, that would only amplify the ongoing crisis, as it would push even more people out onto the streets.
Thus, the city’s inability to construct shelters is certainly concerning, but underlying problem is more significant – there must be a more sustainable, long-term solution to house the homeless.
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