Homelessness is Big Business

[An edited version of this letter was published in the New York Post on Sunday July 31, 2011 here

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/letters/big_homeless_sLzFfEbyk4fDNmuA2moTsO

The federal government creates procedures not to end homelessness, but to allow businessmen to acquire taxpayer funds. US Department of Housing and Urban Development issues guidelines for local communities to get grants to address homelessness. They are required to submit a plan to end homelessness in ten years. In Cambridge MA the City created a committee to create a plan. Fifty people, citizens, politicians and bureaucrats met several times and came up with a plan. They submitted the plan to HUD. The city got the money then allocated it to provide goods and services to persons without homes. They waste the money funding one room hotel units for families. The motel owners make good money. It costs more than an apartment would cost the taxpayers. But business is business even when human lives are the commodity.

[From article]
"the Department of Homeless Services. DHS spends $98.50 a day — $3,000 a month — per single adult in shelters. For families, that figure is even higher. So in 2009, the Bowery Residents Committee, the “nonprofit” behind the Chelsea shelter, took in more than $24 million in government contracts, not counting $6 million in Medicaid checks, $6 million in “program service fees” and $1.5 million in “other grants.”
[. . .]
In Houston, for instance, a room at a shelter is costing taxpayers $3,340 per month even though a two-bedroom apartment goes for an average of $743.
[. . .]
Rosenblatt was an official in the Department of Homeless Services starting in the Koch administration and stayed there until 1999, rising to the level of acting commissioner.

Now he cashes DHS checks he used to write. Powered by your money, the carousel of Big Homelessness goes round and round."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/homeless_inc_6hcPCibAyfhsBu3Scrb0nI

Homeless, inc.
Shelters are a booming business in New York City — even though no one (except ‘nonprofit’ CEOs) wants them
Kyle Smith
New York Post
Last Updated: 4:00 AM, July 24, 2011
Posted: 10:11 PM, July 23, 2011