Homelessness in New York

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History[]

In 1979, a New York City lawyer, Robert Hayes, brought a class action suit before the courts, Callahan v. Carey, against the City and State, arguing for a person's state constitutional "right to shelter". It was settled as a consent decree in August 1981. The City and State agreed to provide board and shelter to all homeless men who met the need standard for welfare or who were homeless by certain other standards. By 1983 this right was extended to homeless women.

On March 18, 2013, the New York City Department of Homeless Services reported that the sheltered homeless population consisted of:^[1]

• 27,844 adults
• 20,627 children
• 48,471 total individuals

According to the Coalition for the Homeless, the homeless population of New York rose to an all-time high in 2011. A reported 113,552 people slept in the city's emergency shelters last year, including over 40,000 children; marking an 8 percent increase from the previous year and a 37 percent increase from 2002. There was also a rise in the number of families relying on shelters, approximately 29,000. That is an increase of 80% from 2002. About half of the people who slept in shelter in 2010 returned for housing in 2011.^[2][3]

According to the NYC Department of Homeless Services, 64 percent of those applying for emergency shelter in 2010 were denied. Several were denied because they were said to have family who could house them when in actuality this might not have been the case. Applicants may have faced overcrowding, unsafe conditions, or may have had relatives unwilling to house them. According to Mary Brosnaham, spokeswoman for Coalition for the Homeless, the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg employs a deliberate policy of "active deterrence".

Part of the problem lies with long-term joblessness that characterizes the United States' economic crisis. According to the Center for an Urban Future about a third of the adult workers in New York City are low-wage earners, making under $11.54 an hour. Affordable rent rates considered to be no more than a third of the renter's wages. A family in New York City must earn at least $54,000 to find an affordable home. The median household income for renters in the Bronx and Brooklyn is barely $30,000 and $35,000 respectively. According to the Community Service Society, "Two-thirds of poor New Yorkers and over one-third of near poor households—up to twice the poverty level—spend at least half of their incomes on rent ... and place millions of low-income New Yorkers at risk of housing hardships and displacement."

The New York City Housing Authority is experiencing record demand for subsidized housing assistance. However, just 13,000 of the 29,000 families who applied were admitted into the public housing system or received federal housing vouchers known as [Section 8] in 2010. Due to budget cuts there have been no new applicants accepted to receive Section 8.^[4]

In March 2010, there were protests about the Governor's proposed cut of $65 million in annual funding to the homeless adult services system.^[5] The Bloomberg administration announced an immediate halt to the Advantage program, threatening to cast 15,000 families back into the shelters or onto the streets. A court has delayed the cut until May 2011 because there was doubt over the legality of cancelling the city's commitment. However, the Advantage program^[6] itself was consciously advanced by the Bloomberg administration as an alternative to providing long-term affordable housing opportunities for the poor and working class. The result, as the Coalition for the Homeless report points out, is that "Thousands of formerly-homeless children and families have been forced back into homelessness, In addition, Mayor Bloomberg proposed $37 million in cuts to the city's budget for homeless services this year.^[3]

In 2004, New York's Department of Homeless Services created HomeBase,^[7] a network of neighborhood-based services, to help tenants in housing crisis to remain in their communities and avoid entering shelter. Tenants can visit HomeBase locations^[8] within their neighborhoods to receive services to prevent eviction, assistance obtaining public benefits, emergency rental assistance and more. Brooklyn nonprofit CAMBA, Inc operates several HomeBase locations as well as an outfitted "You Can Van," which uses data on pending evictions to travel throughout the borough and offer help.

Crimes relating to begging in New York[]

The administration of laws and regulations relating to begging in the state of New York is largely performed by each of the 62 cities of the state. Many of the state of New York's largest cities have introduced laws in the last decade prohibiting 'aggressive begging' in some form. New York City Administrative Code §10-136,^[9] City of Buffalo Code §317,^[10] City of Rochester Code §44-4,^[11] and Albany Code §255-59^[12] prohibit forms of 'aggressive begging' which can include, but is not limited to, conduct that is likely to cause a fear of bodily harm, physical contact, approaching or blocking motor vehicles, and being within a certain distance of banks and ATMs. Syracuse City General Ordinances §16-9 and §16-11 prohibit lewd solicitation and loitering.^[13] The City of Yonkers does not currently have any similar law. New York City also has bans on all begging within the subway system and in airports.^[14]

This situation of banning specific aggressive elements of panhandling arose because of several challenges to previous begging laws on the grounds of constitutionality. In 1990, the ban on begging in New York City's subway was challenged in Young v. New York City Transit Authority, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that the ban in this case did not infringe on First Amendment rights to free speech.^[15] However, this precedent did not last long as it was seemingly overturned in 1993, in Loper v. New York City Police Department.^[16] The Loper case was a challenge to the statewide law in the New York Penal Code §240.35(1) which made it an offence to loiter in a public place for the purpose of begging. New York City Police Department rarely issued fines under this law, but used it to 'move on' beggars.^[14] In Loper, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found begging in this case to be a First Amendment right. And clarified that the ban on the subway system in the Young case was a reasonable limit as, even though it was publicly owned, panhandling in the confined space of the subway system can disrupt and startle passengers and potentially cause harm.^[16] Whereas, the blanket ban in all public spaces in the Loper case would leave beggars nowhere else for begging, which was considered an 'expressive activity' and thus protected by the First Amendment.

A similar judgement was made in International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee in regard to New York City's airports, which found it reasonable to ban such activities in airports.^[17] This has led to the distinction between public places and public places that are not public forums. The airports and subways of New York, while being public places, are not public forums as the free exchange of ideas has never been considered its principal purpose, unlike the streets of New York.^[14]

The Loper judgement is narrow in that it only forbade a blanket ban of begging, in fact it suggested city councils introduce more targeted begging laws, such as those for aggressive begging, and spoke favourably of the laws in Seattle Washington.^[16] After the Loper case which found §240.35(1) of the state's Penal Code to be unconstitutional, the New York City Police Department stopped enforcing that section of the code. However, the law still technically remained in force in the rest of New York state until it was repealed in 2010.^[18] This caused some people in New York state to be charged under that section of the law after Loper, but before it was repealed.^[19]

Civil liberties groups have campaigned against the more targeted aggressive begging laws,^[20] however, they have been found to comply with the First Amendment. In 2006, the City of Rochester's current aggressive begging laws withstood a legal challenge in People v. Barton.^[21] And in 2010, New York City's current aggressive begging laws also withstood challenge in People v. Stroman.^[22]

References[]