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Bloomberg Thinks Homelessness Is "Good Sign" Of Vibrant Economy
By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 19, 2013
Modified Oct 20, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 19, 2013
Modified Oct 20, 2013
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Approximately 50,000 people spend the night in NYC homeless shelters, according to the city’s Department of Homeless Services. There are more people languishing on the waiting list for public housing than there are total public housing units in NYC. There is a serious homelessness epidemic happening in NYC that has not been seen since the Great Depression. And to Mayor Michael "Foot In Mouth" Bloomberg, all of these things are first and foremost "good signs" of a vibrant economy. “Somebody said that there’s not enough housing. That’s a good sign. It doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem, but there are no vacancies,” he said.
“That will bring in investment, for people to build for all income levels, different kinds of housing," he said during his weekly radio appearance. "In cities, if you want to have lots of vacancies where everybody could easily find a place, you don’t have a good economy." Like with a lot of things Bloomberg says—more billionaires in NYC would be "godsends", don't go to the bathroom if you want to be successful—the point he's trying to make is eclipsed by his lack of empathy, and his inability to stop himself from sounding like Scrooge McDuck.
“It is better to have the problem of a city that’s growing than a city that’s shrinking,” Benjamin Dulchin, executive director of the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Developers in New York City, told the Daily News. “The rezoning this administration has done to encourage development is largely market-rate housing. There’s a lot of building going on, but it is not necessarily what our population needs.” This year, the waiting list for affordable housing has soared to 270,000 people; the total amount of public housing units in New York City (which are all occupied) is 178,900.
Bloomberg has radically changed the skyline of NYC through new housing and rezoning, but very little of that has gone toward public housing. He's been sued by the City Council for trying to lease public housing developments' land to private luxury high rise developers. And he hasn't exactly been a sympathetic figure in the past toward those people in need: he's shown a tone deafness with low income families by suggesting the city fingerprint public housing residents, and make them scan in using a fingerprint scanner.
“The affordable housing crisis has gotten worse on his watch," Craig Gurian, of the Anti-Discrimination Center in NYC, told the News. "He’s literally out of touch. He doesn’t experience what most people in the city are experiencing, which is a much greater sense of insecurity than they felt 12 years ago."
Tagged
affordable housing
bloomberg
economy
homelessness
mayor bloomberg
oh bloomberg
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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