NYC Forcing Churches To Kick Homeless Out On The Street

A week ago the temperature here in NYC was in the mid 60s and now it's in the mid 20s, quite the precipitous drop. While most of us are lucky to be indoors to stay warm for the coming winter months, there are the other city residents who are not so fortunate. Plenty of religious and secular groups have helped to take care of the homeless, but the city made a terrible mistake by way of a ridiculous bureaucratic decision.

From The NY Daily News:

As temperatures fall and the economy crashes, 22 city churches have been told to stop providing beds for the homeless, advocates for the poor charged Friday.

"We will see hundreds of people who will not have a place to sleep. It's antithetical to what the mayor talks about," said Arnold Cohen, president of the Partnership for the Homeless, a nonprofit that serves as the middleman between the city and faith-based shelters.

The city recently began enforcing an often-overlooked rule that requires faith-based shelters to open five days a week, said Cohen who told a score of churches last month they no longer qualify to house the homeless.

The city Department of Homeless Services said these shelters - many that have been open three nights a week for decades - should never have been allowed to operate under terms of a contract with the Partnership.

DHS says they'll be making more beds available next year but in these budget crunching times, who knows if they'll keep that promise. Moreover, this is November and 2009 is still a while away. What are the homeless to do until then, just freeze?

That isn't all the city is going to do to the homeless population either. Starting in the spring they'll be closing drop-in centers at 8pm, denying many from coming in from outside to have a place to sleep. DHS claims that they just want people to sleep in the additional beds and not chairs, but the decision has clearly overlooked what advocates for the homeless have been telling the city. In the end, more people will be left out on the street this winter and next year with these changes.

Shame on DHS and Bloomberg for allowing this to happen. They should add more beds before even thinking about shutting those churches down from doing good deeds and allow the people who work with the homeless more of a say in making decisions. That would be common sense, but clearly the city doesn't have any.