A little thread on why homelessness in California is so much more visible than in New York. NY has a legal "right to shelter" because of the Callahan v. Carey consent decree in 1981. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/27/nyregion/pact-requires-city-to-shelter-homeless-men.html …https://twitter.com/samueldodge/status/1070475888620298240 …
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NYC is legally obligated to provide families and people experiencing homelessness with shelter because of this court case. No West Coast cities (that I know of) have "right to shelter."https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/28/hidden-city …
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It was filed by a 26-year-old lawyer who was working on the side of his corporate legal job at Sullivan & Cromwell. He had never tried a case before.https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/02/nyregion/robert-hayes-anatomy-of-a-crusader.html …
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He had befriended an elderly homeless man named Robert Callahan, the self-styled "Mayor of the Bowery."https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/30/nyregion/attorney-for-homeless-worked-in-two-worlds.html …
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What Hayes wanted was to enforce a specific provision in the New York state Constitution. That the word "shall" in this section, really meant "shall." https://www.dos.ny.gov/info/constitution/article_17_social_welfare.html …pic.twitter.com/EEUj5mNGP2
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This language came through former mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who successfully convinced voters to add it during the Great Depression. He had been a fan of Jacob Riis, the turn-of-the-century muckraker who documented living conditions in tenements.
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Hayes won, but unfortunately, Callahan had passed away on the city's streets before that happened. And that's in part why the unsheltered homelessness rates in NYC are so much lower than in CA. (Our overall per capita numbers aren't that different.) https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-article/2017-10-23/homelessness-bay-area …pic.twitter.com/CFjxxyADOM
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That said, Bay Area homelessness advocates have some hesitations about "right to shelter." They worry it will divert resources away from permanent housing. The ~77K people experiencing homelessness in NYC can get shuffled around in shelters for years.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/nyregion/homelessness-step-by-step.html …
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Replying to @kimmaicutler
Informative as always. I'm still blown away that with Prop C we're looking over $650m/yr and no guarantee of a bed, under a roof, per chronically homeless (~7500?). And yes, I've read the official site on how that money will be used.
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I don't think unfavorable-looking per capita spending figures that were bandied about during the @OurHomeSF campaign were really fair. NY state supplements homelessness spending in NYC by *orders of magnitude* more than CA supports homelessness spending in its cities.pic.twitter.com/kSBgddd3Qk
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Replying to @kimmaicutler @OurHomeSF
I've seen that and read the Chronicle's excellent breakdown of how most of the funds are to prevent homelessness. Still, it's sad that with such an absurd budget we can't guarantee a bed under a roof for everyone. We need a "right to shelter" in our state Constitution.
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