Genata Carrol of the East Village says:
"As a clinician who has worked with homeless people for 15 years, I am concerned about city plans to move the main intake center from Manhattan. Removing the center from the borough that has the largest number of homeless individuals is a counterintuitive choice and may endanger those who will not have the wherewithal on a freezing night to get to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn.
Chronically homeless people are not unlike homing pigeons, returning to the shelter that they know. Many of these individuals are mentally ill, confused and unable to navigate the administrative hurdles that the Department of Homeless Services has put in place to receive shelter.
While I support the proclaimed change in direction that the city has begun, sending outreach teams to find the homeless and help them to safe havens with fewer barriers to entry, in practice, I have not encountered any such change, and neither have my patients."
Courtesy of the NY Times
Read the rest of the letters (here)
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