The crisis of homelessness that ballooned under Mayor Michael Bloomberg shows no signs of deflating anytime soon under his successor, Bill de Blasio. Nearly 57,000 people were sleeping in city shelters at last count, 24,000 of them children. It was a disaster then. It is a disaster now.
The responsibility for it is widespread. It’s an inescapable fact that the number of people forced to live on the streets of New York City rises and falls based on political calculations made far up the Hudson River, in Albany, and in the nation’s capital. And, of course, on the willingness and ability of City Hall to grapple with the problem.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in his State of the State address in January, called the rise in homelessness “simply a disgrace.” But calling something disgraceful and doing something about it are two different things. Though Mr. de Blasio has placed affordable housing at the core of his vision of a fairer city, and has pledged — unsuccessfully so far — to get a grip on the homeless crisis, there are limits to what he can do without Mr. Cuomo’s help.
For decades, a city-state partnership called New York/New York, established in 1990 under Mayor David Dinkins and Gov. Mario Cuomo and periodically renewed, has created thousands of units of supportive housing — apartments coupled with services to help those with mental illnesses and other disabilities leave the streets.
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