Care For the Homeless

Jeff Foreman, Policy Director The Congressional Budget Conference Committee meets this week in Washington. It’s important to think about how past and proposed “safety net” budget cuts hurt vulnerable people, especially those experiencing homelessness. This is the Committee with the goal, though frankly little expectation, of crafting a “grand compromise” ending the sequestration/budget battle, government shutdown threat and debt ceiling crisis. Last week the nonpartisan NDD United (NDD stands for Non-Defense Discretionary, as in the domestic spending half of sequestration cuts that hurt people in our communities) released a report. They fittingly called it “How Budget Cuts Have Made Us Sicker, Poorer and Less Safe.” Their point was to put a face on the suffering and loses program cuts have caused to real people. It’s true. In New York City, for example, housing officials had anticipated 5,000 new housing vouchers for families experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Af...

From one of our extraordinary donors: “Great – glad I could help. I admire your organization – we should all do as much as we can to care for those less fortunate.”  We truly want to take the time to thank all of our donors for their continuous support in our efforts to end homelessness.

Jeff Foreman, Director of Policy New York is flush with conversation about the new city administration and the typical who is coming/who is going chatter, not to mention the interest in who the new City Council Speaker will be. It is exciting. And for homeless advocates there’s special excitement with a new Mayor committed to a progressive agenda that includes housing the homeless and 200,000 units of affordable housing. We’re also excited with the prospect of Councilwoman Letitia James, who stood with our Care for the Homeless contingent on the steps of City Hall at a recent United to End Homelessness rally, and Scott Stringer as new citywide officials. Mayor-elect de Blasio has taken on the most hopeful agenda to fight homelessness in New York City ever. His promise of 200,000 units of affordable housing, commitment to reinstate a priority for people experiencing homelessness to get NYCHA and Section 8 housing, and his pledge to never cut shelter beds for runaway and h...

One out of every 20 public-school students is living in a homeless shelter. Homeless children are sick four times more often than those who are housed. Because of the generous support of our donors, Care for the Homeless is on the front lines, providing critical medical, dental and mental health care to families who needs us most. Learn more about our pediatric programming and all our services--and how you can volunteer to help--on our web site: www.careforthehomeless.org .

Jeff Foreman, Director of Policy There's reason for optimism about ending homelessness as we know it in New York City. Sure, the problem has never been worse. There are 57,000 homeless people daily in city homeless shelters or living on the streets, probably more. At least 22,000 of them are kids and, for them, brushes with homelessness may lead to a lifetime of consequences. But now a loosely knit network of community-based groups, calling themselves United to End Homelessness, have joined to author and promote a detailed plan. They fittingly called it "A Roadmap to Ending Homelessness." The timing isn't random. It comes just weeks before an election sure to shake up city policies for decades with a new mayor, all new citywide officials and several new City Council members, too. Nicole Branca, deputy executive director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York, is a steering committee member. She says the group’s hope "is that this briefi...