Homelessness

The Subway Homeless Rate Rises As More Unsheltered Go Underground

We've been hit with two incredibly significant statistics of Gotham income's reality over the past few months. First, the homelessness levels in this city right now are that of the Great Depression. And second, half of New Yorkers live in or near poverty. Now that we're settled into the situation he ... More >>

Homeless Boot Recipient Shoeless Yet Again; Wants Pie (Read: Money)

Last week, America gushed over the generosity of an NYPD officer who bought a shoeless homeless man a pair of boots. Those boots are now MIA, and the homeless recipient is shoeless yet again -- and looking for a "piece of the pie."The man was identified over the weekend as Jeffrey Hillman, formerly ... More >>

Good Cop Story: NYPD Officer Larry DePrimo Drops $75 On Boots For Barefoot Homeless Man

Believe it or not, not all cops, are racist, donut-eating thugs who want nothing more than to hassle innocent citizens. In fact, the vast majority are good people who put themselves in harm's way to keep the rest of us safe.The good ones, however, tend to get the least amount of ink. But NYPD Office ... More >>

Justin Timberlake Wedding Video Still Raising Hackles

At the wedding of Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, a video was shown of various homeless people wishing the happy couple their congratulations, as I'm sure you've heard. It was shot by a friend, L.A. real estate agent Justin Huchel, so the Timberlakes quite possibly had nothing to do with the vi ... More >>

Two Subway Deaths in Manhattan and Brooklyn Last Night

This is always the worst kind of news to report for you: yesterday, within an hour of each other, two separate men died by being hit by subway cars. The first fatality came at around 12:15am; according to the Post, a man was killed immediately by a Manhattan-bound L train at the East 105th Stre ... More >>

Will Picture The Homeless Sue New York Post Over Sensational Squatting Article?

Yesterday, Runnin' Scared brought you news of Picture the Homeless' funding fracas. The Bronx-based non-profit has received $240,000 in public money over the last five years, but payouts got frozen this week as the City Council investigates squatting allegations. Picture the Homeless says that the ... More >>

Picture The Homeless: Was the Group's Funding Frozen Over Squatting Allegations?

This just in: Picture the Homeless says that its funding has been frozen because of a New York Post story claiming that the non-profit, which received $240,000 from the city in recent years, taught people how to illegally squat. The funding fracas started when Andres Perez, a board member of the Br ... More >>

The Jewish Guild For the Blind and Homes For the Homeless: See The Tax Returns Of Your Tax Dollars At Work

In this week's Voice cover story, we take a look at "The Nonprofit 1%," those people who head tax-exempt organizations which pay them so well, they're in the top one percent of earners. We take a particularly close look at the Jewish Guild for the Blind, where a $5,000 a year part-time music therapi ... More >>

Homeless Youth Run in New York City Half Marathon

Three runners who participated in New York City's 13.1-mile half marathon on Sunday trained just like everyone else in the race -- going on increasingly longer runs and exercising for weeks leading up to the event. The only difference is these three are homeless youth. The Voice this morning cau ... More >>

Historic Jazz Site in Harlem Rehabilitated, Houses Formerly Homeless New Yorkers

At a time when social services are facing sometimes difficult cuts, one organization is celebrating the funding it received from the city to rehabilitate a housing project in Harlem that provides homes and services to the chronically homeless. Housing and Services Inc., or HSI, -- an organization t ... More >>

Picture the Homeless Renews Demands for City Survey of Empty Real Estate

About two years ago, Picture the Homeless tried to get the City Council to make a yearly inventory of the New York's vacant properties -- asking Councilman Eric Dilan, housing and buildings committee chair, to give the group's proposal a hearing. The City Council refused, with one member reportedly ... More >>

New York Has More Vacant Buildings and Lots Than It Has Homeless People

New York City has more than enough vacant space to provide housing for every homeless person in the city, according to a study released yesterday by Picture the Homeless and Hunter College. The study represents the first effort to catalog New York's vacant spaces, and includes a survey of community ... More >>

100 Most Powerless New Yorkers

A 'power list' for the rest of us

Occupy Wall Street Re-Occupies Foreclosed Home in East New York: A Report From the Scene

Nick Pinto​Occupy Wall Street organizers ushered in a new phase of their movement yesterday when about 400 people participated in a collaborative takeover to re-occupy a vacant foreclosed home in East New York for a homeless family of four. The afternoon's event, part of a collaborative Nati ... More >>

Four Homeless New Yorkers Are on Twitter

​This afternoon, the Observer points us to Underheard in New York, an interesting, if misguided project in which three interns from Bartle Bogle Hegarty, an ad agency, gave four homeless men prepaid cell phones and set them up with Twitter accounts. How's it going?

Someday, the Homeless Will Wear Ed Hardy

It hurts.​So, Super Top Secret, an interactive design and advertising shop based in Utah, has embarked on a plan to make the world "less sucky." They've printed up a bunch of T-shirts, and they're offering one of those shirts to anyone who will send in their own "heinous Affliction or Ed Hardy ... More >>

Times Square Drives Away Everyone Except One Last Homeless Guy

Walt Disney​All of you bitchers-and-moaners harping about how the bad old days of New York are the only days of New York (don't get me wrong, I hate a Starbucks in the East Village as much as you do, but there's something to be said for not getting mugged on the way to Key Food) -- well, anywa ... More >>

Opponents of Homeless in Bronx Apartment Building Lose a Round in Court

Sandi Lusk​The Bronx merchants' group that unsuccessfully sued the Department of Homeless Services for quietly entering into an agreement to rent units in a brand new apartment building tried last week to make the city do a study and hold a hearing before letting the homeless in. The judge reb ... More >>

Bill de Blasio Pleads with Bloomberg to Return to the Enlightened Homeless Policies of Rudy Giuliani

On Monday the Times ran an article saying new Public Advocate Bill de Blasio "Assails Bloomberg's Performance on Homelessness." This is curious, as de Blasio's pitch is described later in the article pithily thus: "Mr. de Blasio offered several suggestions on how to improve conditions for the homel ... More >>

City to cover (some) revoked Section 8 vouchers

New York's Department of Homeless Services has announced plans to cover, at least temporarily, the cost of more than half of the $800 housing vouchers the city announced plans to default on yesterday. Homeless Services Commissioner Rob Hess says that the city will cover immediate rent costs for 1, ... More >>

Christmas Gets Tougher For NYC's Poor, Post Readers Rejoice

​Santa is not bringing an end to the bad news for the city's poor this Christmas. With a record high number of homeless families, and the city's homeless shelter system for single adults already at 99.6 percent capacity, the Housing Authority is taking back 3,000 already-issued Section 8 vouch ... More >>

City Lights

Frigid Outside and No Room at Homeless Inns

Bloomberg 3: No more Mr. Nice Guy​The temperature's dipping into the low 30s today, so we can be can be sure to get more glimpses of life in the Age of Bloomberg like this one, as described in the Legal Aid lawsuit filed yesterday seeking a new court order to force the city to house the homele ... More >>

On First Day of Bronx Shelter Court Fight, Neighbors Charge City is Muzzling a Witness

​Since an emergency shelter dropped into a Bronx neighborhood without any local input in August, residents there beat the drum against the plan -- even stationing crowds outside of one of Mayor Bloomberg's campaign offices in the weeks leading up to the election. All the theatrics, the placard ... More >>

Budget Office: City Food Stamps Hit New Record

​Here's another of those inconvenient milestones of the Bloomberg Years: The Independent Budget Office says that the city has hit an all-time high in the number of New Yorkers receiving food stamps - a record 1.6 million. The news comes a week after the Coalition for the Homeless announced tha ... More >>

Homeless Activists Take Over JPMorgan's Vacant Lot in E. Harlem

Picture the Homeless has commandeered a vacant lot at 115th between Madison and Fifth Avenue. They say the "warehoused" lot is owned by JPMorgan Chase, which they point out is a "recent beneficiary of billions in taxpayer bailout money." They seem pleased with their encampment so far: "Tent city lo ... More >>

Homeless Shelter Auctions Off Original Michael Jackson "Thriller" Film

Can we get one more Michael Jackson story in before the holiday? You bet! A homeless shelter in Paterson, New Jersey claims to have the 35mm original of Michael Jackson's Thriller video, and seeks a buyer. Eva's Village Healthcare for the Homeless says former CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff ... More >>

Plan to Charge Homeless Rent for Shelters Withdrawn, for Now

Remember that new city policy of charging the homeless rent for shelters? It's been reversed, at least temporarily. Homeless advocates were going ballistic, and the Times says the program was administrated haphazardly, with erroneous charges sent to some working homeless who were deemed sufficiently ... More >>

City Charges Homeless to Stay in Shelters

We keep hearing, with little concrete evidence, that rents are going down in New York. But for one class of citizen, housing costs are undeniably going up: the city is starting to charge the working homeless rent to stay in the shelters. Now, if you're on the bum but trying to save up a little som ... More >>

Times: "Cluster-Site" Homeless Housing Bonanza for Landlords, Bad for Tenants

The "scatter-site" housing program -- originated by John Lindsay to set homeless families up in apartments in various working class neighborhoods, adopted by Mayor Giuliani and inherited and perpetuated by Mayor Bloomberg -- was unpopular. So Bloomberg vowed to phase it out. But he has replaced i ... More >>

Artist Goes Homeless for a Week to Raise Money, Awareness

This weekend Yusef Ramelize (pictured above) began his "Homeless for One Week" project. He's going to do without his apartment -- a pretty nice one, it appears -- through next Sunday, as a way of raising awareness and funds for the Coalition for the Homeless. A graphic artist and production coord ... More >>

Homeless Families Pack Shelters; Bloomberg Says, Quit Yer Bitchin'

Bronx Landlord Gets Jail Time for Violations

Rudy Awakening

Mr. Giuliani wants to go to Washington; doc protests

Bowery Bummer

CBGB is facing eviction—but not at the hands of greedy developers

Come to Bed

A Post–9-11 Reality Check

The Soaring Cost of Iraq 'Peace,' the Soaring Cost of Life in America

Heartless Hotel

Prison Contracts and Homeless Crisis Built Empire

Ready, Willing & Under Fire

Community Fights Doe Fund Shelter

Queers Without Money

They Are Everywhere. But We Refuse to See Them.

Permanent Midnight

Marc Singer’s Tunnel Vision

No Services Offered in Arrest of Homeless Man

Helter-Shelter

The Mayor Wants the NYPD to Arrest the Homeless. Ever Been There?

Marchers Bring Their Case to UN

Poor But Not Powerless

Age-Old Neglect

Former Foster Kids: City Abandons Us

Service Interrupted

The crisis at North Central Bronx Hospital

No Relief

Giuliani's New York: The View from Below

Payback Politics

People in need pay the price for Rudy's revenge

The Disappeared

Nowhere to Go

New York is Hell If You're 18 and Homeless