Since the start of this year, City Limits has been tracking and graphing the city's shelter population each day on our website—an effort to provide a more complete tally than the one regularly cited by City Hall, which reports the number of people staying each night in Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelters, but excludes those staying in shelters run by three other city agencies. The city's incomplete count obscures the true extent of New York's homelessness crisis, with the actual number of unhoused residents about 15 percent higher than what's typically reported.
Now, in response to our reporting—which was featured this week in an in-depth article by The New Yorker—Eric Adams' administration says it will change how it publicly tracks homelessness numbers to match the full picture City Limits has been providing. Here's an excerpt from New Yorker columnist Eric Lach's piece:
"City Limits, which was founded by housing activists, in 1976, has a full-time staff of seven people. New York City’s government employs hundreds of thousands. There’s no practical reason that the news outlet should be able to produce a more useful and comprehensive shelter census than the city."
|
