New York to charge homeless to stay in shelters. Up to 44% of their income.

[madfloridian]

Hat tip to the Perdido Street School blog...has this been going on or is it something new? First I heard of it, and I find it rather heartless.

Charging rent on the homeless

What a novel idea - charging homeless people 44% of their income to stay in the shelter system.

That will certainly make saving money and getting out of the shelter system easier.

You know, Bloomberg ought to extrapolate the idea to other things.

Maybe we can charge the mentally ill rent to keep them in the hospital.

Here is more from the New York Daily News:

City to charge rent to homeless shelter residents with jobs

Won't that make it harder for a person to get back on his feet and make a start toward not being homeless?

Nothing's free in New York - not even a stint in a city shelter.

Homeless people with jobs are going to have to start paying the city rent to stay in shelters, officials said Tuesday.

"Open-ended handouts, we know, don't work," Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs said. "This is not a moneymaker. We're not doing this to close budget gaps. It's really the principles ... involved."

A 1997 state law requires New York to charge rent to the homeless who can afford it. The city never did, but has been pressed to do it since a state audit last year.

Shelter residents would have to pay as much as 44% of their income in their first year in the program.

Critics say the plan penalizes people who are struggling.

Florida is not very kind to its homeless population either. I can see that they don't want to offer too much because our climate is better for them than many states. But there much be accommodations made in an economy like this one.

Florida calls some homeless "professional transients"

Lakeland's reputation as a mecca for the homeless may be over - at least for professional transients.

..."But at their annual retreat Friday, commissioners clearly wanted to do something about transients who are only in Lakeland because it is a good spot to get food and shelter.

"We need to find a place to send them and I think South Georgia would be a great place," said City Commissioner Jim Verplanck.

Send them to Georgia?

[Leftist Agitator]

1. Send them to Georgia?

[scheming daemons]

2. 44% of nothing is still nothing.....

How do you charge someone who has no income a percentage of their income?

[carlyhippy]

3. hmmm, lets see...being they are homeless they probably have no income

so 44% of nothing is nothing

[bonnieS]

4. It's homeless people with JOBS

so they have an income.

This is heartless in any case. Another version of "This hurts me more than it does you" since supposedly this is not for money but for the good of the homeless person.

Anything but tax the rich and the corporations.

[Raineyb]

7. Yes but it's income that's so low they can't afford housing.

But that's modern New York for you. When money is flowing make sure the poor don't get any and when money is tight make sure you squeeze the poor for every penny you can. Whatever you do don't tax those rich fucks.

I hate this mayor. He's a complete piece of shit.

[liberalhistorian]

10. It ain't just in New York, I'm seeing this shit

in a lot of other cities and municipalities as well. Although I do agree that NYC's mayor is a royal piece of shit. But what does he care? He's got his billions to keep him warm at night while laughing at those huddled around a sidewalk grate.

[Jefferson23]

5. Which political party has given a damn about the homeless?

Professional transients is an interesting label, I think the term could be applied to the people who most certainly did profit
from the Wall Street scams these last several years.

[mntleo2]

6. They already charge for homeless in NY ...

...WITHOUT jobs like my friend Brenda who is over 60 and unable to find work. They take over 1/2 her income. She worked 30+ years as an accountant for an interior decorator who died and left her without employment. On these wages, she raised 4 kids aand put two of them through college with her meager wages. She lost her apartment where she had raised her kids and lived for over 237 years. She hit the streeets and tried to couch surf until she could find this shelter, which is the only place "affordable". Nobody will hire her because she is too old, a person of color, and a woman. She goes out every day looking for work though. Meanwhile the shelter she lives in charges her 1/2 her income, which is less than $75.00 a week that she gets from GA-U.

I live in WA State and it is not much better. These places are incidious for many reasons though they are the only place the homeless can turn to.

I met Brenda while in DC testifying before the Congress and the Senate about TANF and GA-U, which is aweful in many ways.

Local DSHS offices, funded by the feds, are using shelters and low income housing for harvesting low income women's kids for adoption. DSHS actually takes over 1/3 of their federally funded TANF funding for CPS and funding is based on the amount of kids taken NOT on family preservation. So knowing these low income mothers have few ways to defend themselves, CPS workers come in, make false charges they are never held accountable for, and every kid they take racks up funding for the State, when they already have a bottomless pit of Title IV money that keeps coming and is not monitored. Literally taking money out of the mouths of babes in order to destroy families because they are poor.

Low income and homeless shelters are actually using this population to harvest kids and sell them. In my state there is a "clean and sober" place called Opportunity Place run by the YWCA. "Coincidently" they also house a private adoption agency. Between April of 2005 to July of 2006, CPS came in and took every single child from the building of over 100 residents. It is happening more than this but this is the time I know, because I spoke with some mothers and am documenting it as carefully as I can. I also am in a group of mothers and grandmothers where the same thing is happening in low income housing in Philly.

If using shelters and low income housing to harvest children for adoption is happening in Philly and Seattle, it is happening everywhere.


Low income older workers face punitive SW workers as if they are "lazy" when in fact nobody will hire us.

Still these low income workers are expected to find work when in fact little is out there for a livable wage. Plus with older workes who've put into the System for years and years are treated as if they contributed nbthing.

My curse for these policy makers is to live like Brenda does and spend a futureless time living in them. I usually would not wish it on my worse enemy, but it is the only way these idiots will get it. But by then it is too late because well ...they are in the same boat as Brenda and millions of others in the nation.

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

[liberation]

8. Gotta love capitalism....

... the filthy rich get to steal trillions of our "money." While the destitute who have nothing still get to pay 44% of something they do not have.

Capital is suicide by placebo, and we're too stupid as a species to figure that one out.

[liberalhistorian]

9. "Whosoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their

Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God"; Proverbs

"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered"; Proverbs 21:13

"He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich-both come to poverty"; Proverbs 22:16

"Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a rich man whose ways are perverse; Proverbs 28:6

"The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern"; Proverbs 29:seven (had to write in the number 'cause the number itself came up as a funny icon-weird!)

"A man's riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat; Proverbs 13:8

"A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed; Proverbs 11:25

"Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf; Proverbs 11:28

"He who despises his neighbor sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy; Proverbs 14:21

This is just a small part of such sayings concerning God's attitude toward justice and the poor and how we are to act toward them; there are hundreds more such verses in both the Old and New Testaments; it takes on a special urgency in the New Testament and Christ's actions and commands to his followers.

We are supposed to be a "Christian" nation. Yet, this is one Christian who does not see many of those who claim to be Christians acting as they should; especially not those in charge who claim that we were founded on Judeo-Christian principles.

"

[etherealtruth]

11. This will certainly make it much easier for them to 'get on their feet" ...

:sarcasm:

Its almost a guarantee they'll remain homeless forever :(

[Rex]

12. 44% of what? A half eaten bagel? Some cold coffee?

Cities that hate the homeless will be destroyed by God during the Rapture. Series.

[Ken Burch]

13. Can they charge Bloomberg 44% of HIS(pre-mayoral) income to stay in Gracie Mansion?

That would plug the budget gap right there.

[feslen]

14. this is intolerable bullcrap

"Mayor" Bloomburg is insane and needs to be thrown in jail. Why doesn't he tax his rich buddies in the corporate world if the city needs to make budget--or whatever?

this is capitalism at its best *sarcasm*

....so why aren't the nutcase right wingers happy about this news? take from the poor, give to the rich!!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

15. I was always told your rent should cost no more than 25% of your income

So these assholes are bent on ensuring that the working poor cannot afford to live anywhere.
:grr:

[Obamanaut]

16. Many more responses on this here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8147636

[cstanleytech]

17. Ya know what I kinda like this idea of charging them....

however they should imo amend it so the money goes into a pool which helps the homeless who do want their own place to get one.