NEW YORK — As the homeless population here reaches record levels, growing numbers have jobs but still can’t afford a place to live. About one-third of families living in shelters include at least one working adult, the April 8 New York Times said in an article aptly titled “When They Go Home After Working All Day, It’s Not to a Home.”
These workers hold all kinds of jobs — cooks, librarians, home health aides, bartenders, truck drivers, janitors, nurses and more. They drive ambulances and Ubers, work in construction and deliver Amazon packages. They often avoid discussing with co-workers and others the fact that they don’t have their own place to live.
The average rent on a one-bedroom apartment here is $4,325. That’s a $2,000 jump since 2021.
“The saddest thing I’ve seen is that people are getting priced out of New York City so badly that they are not even moving out of the city,” Kuber Sancho-Persad, 30, a taxi driver living with his mother in the Blue Sky Residence homeless shelter in Queens, told the Times. “They are just getting evicted and coming to live in the shelter.”
He faced this situation after his parents became ill and could no longer afford the monthly payments on the house where they had lived for years. After his mother, who was a home health aide, was diagnosed with cancer, Sancho-Persad had to spend more time taking care of her.
“New York City is becoming more for the wealthy and I don’t think that’s going to end well,” he told the paper. “You know why? Poor people make this city go.”
Over 350,000 people were homeless in the city in January, the Coalition for the Homeless says. This includes 120,513 who slept each night in shelters, countless others who lived on the streets, and more than 200,000 temporarily doubled-up in the homes of relatives or friends. Those in shelters included over 41,000 children.
According to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, 40% to 60% of people who are homeless nationwide have a job.
More city shelters are being set up specifically for those with jobs. New York City has 22 “employment shelters” for single adults, many of which opened in the past few years. There are also a growing number of family shelters run by private contractors, where a large percentage of residents have jobs.
The Jamaica Women’s Employment Shelter in Queens, for example, has walls covered with job listings for home health aides, subway cleaners and positions at Best Buy, Old Navy and Starbucks. About 70% of the women living there are employed. “At the end of the day,” writes the Times, they “return to tidy, small rooms they share with one or two others.”
Rising health, child care costs
Working people are also being hard hit by the high cost of child care, with over half of New York City families with children age 4 and under unable to afford it. Many city families spend about a quarter of their income on child care.
Decent medical care has also spiraled out of reach for many workers and their families. A recent survey by West Health and Gallup said that more than a third of those who need medical care can’t afford to pay for it. This figure is higher for poorer sections of the working class, including Blacks and immigrant workers.
And many who do have health insurance still can’t afford to pay their medical bills. The giant for-profit insurance monopolies also continue to jack up workers’ monthly premiums.
More and more workers are being forced to put necessary purchases for medical treatment, groceries, rent, gas and electricity on their credit cards. With outrageous interest rates, 20% annually or more, bank charges on unpaid card balances push more and more working people deeper into debt.
The impact of this is reflected in a recent report by the Philadelphia branch of the Federal Reserve. It showed the number of credit card users that only paid their minimum required amount monthly hit a 12-year high at the end of 2024. Credit card accounts that were 30, 60 and 90 days past due also increased in the fourth quarter.
In its first-quarter earnings this year, JP Morgan complained the portion of loans in its credit card business deemed unrecoverable rose to a 13-year high.