UNITED STATES: Shelters for New York’s Homeless Get Tougher

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Feb 23 1996 (IPS) - The fact that some of New York’s homeless people would avoid city-run shelters during one of the most brutal winters in recent memory seems peculiar.

But given the choice, many brave the weather.

“Once it gets warmer, I’m going to stay out on the streets,” says Andre, who begs in the daytime in the posh Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood. “It’s safer outside, and it’s better for me.”

“People don’t know unless they’ve been there,” says Eric, a Brooklyn native who occasionally stays in city shelters. “I’ve seen people stabbed in there, and I’ve had to sleep with all my possessions tied to my stomach in some places (to avoid being robbed).”

Eric says he hates so many things about the shelters: the crowding, the dangerous atmosphere, the poor health conditions. “Some places, you couldn’t pay me to go,” he argues.

Others among the roughly 86,000 residents who check into New York City’s homeless shelters each year complain of being awakened by shelter officials after only three hours’ sleep, or of being made to hand over what little possessions they have.

The shelters are so despised that some homeless New Yorkers actively flee city officials rather than spend a freezing or snowy night as their guests.

But the records of the city’s Department of Homeless Services show that the 7,362 beds in the city system are all filled on a cold night with some people sleeping on the floor.

Now, groups defending homeless rights argue, New York’s Republican governor, George Pataki, intends to make a bad thing worse. Pataki has urged the repeal of several measures that have been required to ensure that city shelters meet minimal health and fire safety standards.

Pataki wants to lift the regulation that prohibits New York from allowing no more than 200 people to stay in each individual city shelter per night.

He also intends to scrap specific measures designed to ensure that shelters have smoke detectors for fire, at least two means of exit in case of a fire, adequate plumbing and ventilation, and premises free of rodents and vermin.

The governor insists that adequate health and fire standards are already provided for in other city and state regulations, and do not need to be duplicated for homeless shelters.

The proposed repeals, he said in a statement, will “ease the burden on social service districts and other operators of shelters for adults in relation to the operation of such shelters.”

But Pataki’s proposals comprise “an all-out assault on the most minimal fire, safety and health standards for the poorest New Yorkers,” argues Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the city’s Coalition for the Homeless.

Brosnahan notes that, even now, many shelters have substandard living conditions. Four shelters house more than the maximum 200 people per night because of court decrees requiring the city to provide shelter for those who need it.

The Coalition for the Homeless, in a survey of homeless shelters conducted two weeks ago, found seven shelters were violating the basic health and safety standards they must meet.

The large LaGuardia Armoury houses more than 1,000 people. At the shelter in Manhattan’s upper-class Bellevue district, coalition inspectors found the fire system was not working, only 31 showers were operating for some 900 residents, seven windows were broken, many lights did not work, and the building suffered from holes and plaster and paint damage.

Current regulations force New York state officials to withhold reimbursements for city services if the shelters violate minimal standards. The state is currently holding back some 16 million dollars from the city because of the substandard shelters.

If the shelter regulations are repealed, Brosnahan argues, that leverage from the state will be ended. She contends that this would please city officials who are eager to avoid improving the shelters.

“(New York Mayor) Rudolph Giuliani loves the proposals,” she says. “Pataki’s plan would allow him to neglect the shelters entirely if he wants.”

Activists fear that New York may address the problems by crowding the homeless into the buildings, a situation that existed in the 1980s, when some shelters stored one thousand homeless people. Such crowding encouraged the spread of tuberculosis and AIDS, argues Housing Works, a group supporting homeless AIDS victims.

“There are still thousands of homeless people with HIV-related illnesses,” says co-executive director Charles King.

“Eliminating the state shelter regulations will guarantee that they are even more likely to be exposed to infections that can kill them, and even more likely to be targeted for violence by both shelter staff and other residents,” he adds.

Spokespersons for Mayor Giuliani refused to comment on Pataki’s proposals. But Joan Malin, the Commissioner for Homeless Services in New York, told the New York Times last month that “it always is a desire to have greater flexibility” in providing services.