The city is still planning to build new congregate housing... at prices that could arguably build a 1BR units for each congregate bed.

In any sane location (obv not NY), a criminal stating he would do it again would weigh more than his criminal history.

Criminal history is just a proxy for future behavior. If someone is saying they would do it again, such proxy becomes misleading.

All good and valid points.

But remember that only 1 out of 5 accepted going to a shelter.

With the same budget the city could be offering a lot better quality services and housing.

4 out of 5 whose suffering are not really being reduced.

Simply offering more of the same (or locking shitty solutions into decade-long contracts) ain’t going to really move the needle. It only keeps draining the city’s resources away from more effective solutions.

If only someone could review those contracts.

Capital costs or not, nothing here makes sense.

Why should the city pay for a NGO to buy the land and construct the building, and when the contract is over, they can just own it?

Besides, the E 45th building is already there, and it’s owned by the city.

For this Brooklyn one that's $5.9k per bed per month for the duration of the contract.

For the E 45th Shelter, where a woman was murdered by stabbing in December, the city was paying $3.2k per month per bed last year.

They renewed their contract for $4.9k per bed per month ($30,585,745.00 for 130 beds for 4 years: https://a856-cityrecord.nyc.gov/RequestDetail/20220729109). What's worse: the city actually owns that building! Project Renewal is just providing Shelter "services"...

Same company, with a $5.3k per bed per month 39-year long contract https://a856-cityrecord.nyc.gov/RequestDetail/20220127107

That's just one company out of many deserving more oversight: https://www.nyc.gov/site/dhs/shelter/providers/providers.page

>It should come as no surprise that not all unhoused people are the same.

That's why they shouldn't be treated all the same.

The city is failing to separate a typical unhoused person from the ones who are violent, suffering from substance abuse, suffering mental illness.

And because the city is failing to separate them, that's creating and reinforcing a stigma, while making things worse for all of them.

Same people who complain cops keep playing candy-crush, are also the same people who think it's okay for cops to keep arresting the same individuals dozens of times... like a real life candy-crush game.

>Some extremely fuzzy math there. Really dishonest.

Those are all separate being developed by other entities.

The awarded contract of $467M was just for "Shelter FacilitIES for Hmlss SINGLE ADULTS" (that's how the contract title is spelled out, I kid you not)

I understand this is hard to believe. Because it's too stupid to be true, right?

It can always get worse.

SF infamously spent 60k per tent at a homeless encampment. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-officials-want-15-million-for-tent-sites-16269998.php

NYC should change course before we get there.

It's probably stuff like this on every level:

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-comptroller-tom-dinapli-audits-brooklyn-homeless-shelter-waste-20220919-rvczwi3zhjcsppewpey4ivuaxi-story.html

Those shelters also provides "other services". For example, imagine how they bill health services for homeless people who lacks any health coverage.

I wouldn't be surprised if a typical shelter-provided "health care check-in" bills the city $400 for a 3 min consultation.

The city should replace most or all of the congregate bed contracts with SROs. Even SROs shouldn't cost 5k/month.

If there's a minimum of oversight, the city would even save money.

Bare minimum at luxury costs.

The only thing worse than this was the city of SF running a homeless encampment in a parking lot.

They were paying 5k per month per tent to a "homelessness NGO" who was operating that parking lot (3 meals a day, security and portable washrooms)

Given the funding, it's not a money problem. It's a policy problem resulting in bad allocation and utilization of the money.

That requires solutions in the policy space.

Because of the vulnerable population they should serve, crimes committed inside and near shelters should be automatically upgraded in their severity.

Distributing controlled drugs near a shelter should be treated as severely as doing that near or inside a school.

>Wait is it true that they're spending 5k a month per bed?

I was ball parking it and being charitable.

For example, take this new 19 Debevoise Avenue (Brooklyn) shelter contract: https://a856-cityrecord.nyc.gov/RequestDetail/20221129105

It's $467,334,567.00 for 200-beds for 33 years. Open spaces packed with beds and shared bathrooms..

Result: $5900 per bed per month.

Project Renewal is the same operator who runs the shelter in midtown where a woman was stabbed last month (https://nypost.com/2022/12/17/27-year-old-woman-stabbed-to-death-at-nyc-womens-shelter/)

5k can afford a private 1br in a luxury condo with doormans, gym and concierge. And that includes the hefty profits taken by the "greedy landlord".

It's definitively not a funding issue. There should be enough funding for the shelter to be plenty safe and comfortable.

I've been critical of the Gothamist, but I think they are getting closer to a journalistic breakthrough here.

>these requests often do not lead to people actually accepting shelter. Only about one in five accepted such assistance last year, according to 311 data.

That's a staggering low acceptance rate.

Who wouldn't want to stay in a place that costs 5k per month? Because that's about how much NYC pays for each congregate housing bed around here.

These people are either all insane, or that acceptance rate really speaks to the bad conditions of what's being provided.

Any reasonable tax payer in NYC would like to understand how each of those beds can cost 5k per month. And why the city comptroller Brad Lander (a person who has received a lot of favorable coverage by the Gothamist) doesn't seem to have any issue with those shelter contracts.

Understood.

And they indeed dropped some of the charges. So it may have not been just one or another violation.

>The juror said that problems with evidence being withheld had come to light on Thursday, and that Mr. Tanner had asked for extra time to examine the new material. Shortly thereafter, jurors were told that a witness, Tameeka Baker, who was arrested by Mr. Franco in 2017, was no longer a part of the case and that charges related to her arrest were being dropped.

Why wouldn't they simply drop the charges if they had exculpatory evidence?

>On Tuesday, Mr. Levine is releasing a housing plan that identifies roughly 171 such sites across Manhattan where he says more than 73,000 homes can be built, an aspirational vision that reflects the depths of the housing shortage in New York City.

I'm not a big fan of Mark Levine, but I commend him for this. I'm more likely to support him in the future now.

I'm sorry for your loss.

If they do want to kick you out, and you do want to move out, you can offer them a deal. For example, they can cancel your debt and maybe give you some extra time to get your life together. In exchange, they could avoid a protracted legal battle and the prospect of never getting paid anything anyway.

They don't know if you can or cannot afford an attorney.

> Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez weighs his options to either appeal the judge’s decision, drop the charges, or completely retry the case.

That seems to be the reason. It looks like that he is being presumed guilty (maybe because he was found guilty) until the legal proceeds are concluded to reverse it.

A big part of that bill was to fund the DOJ to research/develop a model police training program that can used across police departments in the country.

It’s kind of pointless to say we are not going to vote for a bill that didn’t have studies associated with it, when the bill itself is also supposed to help produce such studies.

The link you gave was about the Invest to Protect Act, which is a different bill.

Still a bad vote, in my opinion. But not applicable to NYC because the NYPD has more than 125 officers.

He might still run for governor again and show up in the ballots in NYC. I don’t see the downside of remembering it.