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 New York City's growing homeless population is the newest focus of
the spat between Cuomo and de Blasio, who has publicly accused the
governor of undermining his initiatives - ranging from control of
city schools to crumbling public housing - for political gain.
Cuomo signed an executive order on Sunday requiring officials
throughout New York State to force the homeless into shelters when
the temperature was at or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees
Celsius). The order goes into effect on Tuesday, when temperatures
in the city were expected to drop to 18 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 7
Celsius) on what weather forecasters said would be the coldest day
so far this winter.
The mayor's administration first learned of the governor's order
late Saturday night but did not obtain all the details until reading
newspaper reports on Sunday, which made clear it referred to an
existing state mental hygiene law, said the city's head of social
services, Steven Banks.
At a press conference on Monday, de Blasio said the order "seems to
simply reiterate what's already in the law and the power we already
have to bring people in off the streets. And we use that power."
The law applies only to homeless people who appear to be mentally
ill, who would be taken off the frigid streets to a mental health
facility for assessment by a medical professional. If the person is
found to be incompetent and refuses to go to a shelter, he or she
would be held at the mental health facility, not a shelter, Banks
said.
He said the governor's order "does not mean that we have any
authority to take off the streets anyone who is competent."
Banks spoke at a separate press conference about the mayor's latest
effort to reduce homelessness. The city wants to end so-called
"cluster" housing, which uses low-rent housing stock to shelter
homeless families, and instead transform those families into renters
of those units.
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Out of nearly 8.5 million people in New York, the largest city in
the United States, about 58,000 homeless sleep in shelters on any
given night. Nearly half of them are children. Between 3,000 to
4,000 people live on the streets, most of them single men who suffer
from some form of mental illness, according to city data.
Seated on a Manhattan sidewalk and holding a cardboard sign
describing himself as homeless, Chris Fitzgerald, 26, said he
planned to sleep in a doorway as he has for the past three years and
would not go to a shelter because he heard they were dirty and
unsafe.
"Not fair," Fitzgerald said of the governor's mandate. "We should be
able to decide what to do for ourselves."
Banks said the condition of shelters would be part of a 90-day
review of the homeless population ordered last month by the mayor.
The governor also indicated homeless shelters may be among his next
targets for review.
"We're paying $1 billion per year as taxpayers to pay for a shelter
system and the homeless say, 'We're afraid to go into it,'" Cuomo
said. "It's not right to have a shelter system that is so dirty and
unsafe, that people have to stay on the street corner."
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant
McCool)
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