Here’s A Summer Must Read, and a Brave Call to Action

Jeff Foreman, Director of Policy

City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer published a great article in Sunday’s New Daily News that startled a number of people.  It was startling because Councilman Van Bramer wrote about his own family’s experience with homelessness – a story certainly most people had never heard.

It was a great story because Van Bramer put a face on homelessness and touched people who normally don’t think about homelessness or that the next homeless family in New York might be very much like your neighbor’s family, your own relatives or perhaps the family of your Council member or you.

Van Bramer used his story to call on all citizens to be part of the solution: “As the city declares war on inequality and Mayor de Blasio rightly takes a humane and honest approach to ending homelessness, we must all be part of the solution. All human beings have a right to shelter. Some may say that’s feel-good liberalism run amok, but in the City of New York, it happens to be the law. We must house our homeless and that means finding places for families like mine to live and begin again.” 

You should read the whole story here.

In a time of dramatically increasing stigmatization of poor or homeless people, that’s often resulted in criminalization of poverty or homelessness or, worse, outright attacks on people experiencing homelessness, it’s inspiring to see our Council Majority Leader leading on a controversial issue.  Championing homeless people may not be the most “politic” thing to do; but it’s the right thing to do.


Thank you Councilman Van Bramer! 

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