Vol. 75/No. 2      January 17, 2011

Half the 400 households that requested help from the city’s Homebase program between June and August are being denied assistance for two years so that researchers can track them to see if they end up homeless. The other half will receive job training, counseling services, and emergency money to help them stay in their homes.

Nearly 37,000 people in New York are currently living in shelters. A September 2010 report found that more than 90 percent of those receiving aid from Homebase did not end up in shelters.

City officials are making it more difficult for workers to receive aid through other programs, as well. Earlier this year it increased the amount that households enrolled in the Advantage Program had to contribute toward rent from $50 a month to up to 40 percent of their monthly income. And to stay with the program for a second year, at least one family member must find a job and work 35 hours each week, up from 20 hours.

New York is not the only place subjecting working people to such tests. The federal department of Housing and Urban Development has started a study in 10 cities and counties to track up to 3,000 households that end up in homeless shelters. Families will be randomly assigned to programs that put them in homes, give them housing subsidies, or, by denying any aid force them to stay in shelters.

And in Washington, D.C., where rents have soared to the highest level in at least 20 years, the city council is planning to make homeless applicants prove they are D.C. residents before they can receive shelter. “We cannot be the hotel for Virginia and Maryland residents,” council member Thomas Wells said.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home