Misguided Homeless Intake Plan: Historical Background and Present Crisis

Since modern homelessness began in the late 1970s, the City of New York has always maintained an intake center for homeless men in Manhattan – first on East 3rd Street and the Bowery, and since 1984 at the Bellevue men's shelter on East 30th Street and First Avenue.

For the past decade, the men’s intake center at the Bellevue shelter has been the only intake point for the municipal shelter system – it is, literally, the “front door” to the shelter system for homeless single men seeking shelter.

In FY 2007 nearly 22,000 different homeless single adults sought shelter, including 7,164 homeless single men who were new to the shelter system. Currently nearly 7,000 homeless single adults sleep each night in the municipal shelter system, including more than 5,000 homeless single men.

On March 31, 2008, the New York City Economic Development Corporation announced plans to convert the Bellevue men's shelter into a luxury hotel and conference center; the City is currently seeking bids from developers. On April 25th, the Bloomberg administration told news reporters and some Brooklyn elected officials that it plans to move the men’s intake center to the Bedford-Atlantic armory, a 350-bed shelter located in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, as soon as September of this year.

City officials told news reporters that there was no longer a need for a Manhattan intake center, and that street homeless people in Manhattan would be assisted by outreach teams or could call 311, the City’s general service line. City officials also claimed that the current residents of the Bellevue shelter – around 600 men per night in April – would be relocated to housing, but offered no details about this plan.

Download the memo fact-checking the City's new intake plan!


Courtesy of Coalition for the Homeless (Read the full article here)