Posted on 11/22/2008 2:44:31 PM PST by Alex Murphy
NEW YORK — Twenty-two New York City churches have been ordered by the city to stop providing shelter to the homeless.
With temperatures below freezing Saturday, the churches had to follow a city rule requiring faith-based shelters to be open at least five days a week or not at all.
Arnold Cohen, president of the Partnership for the Homeless, a non-profit organization that serves as a link between city officials and shelters, delivered the news to the churches several weeks ago that they no longer qualify.
As a result hundreds of people now won't have a place to sleep, he said.
The city's emergency shelter network contract requires sites to operate at least five nights a week. The 22 churches have limited resources, since they operate their homeless beds using mostly volunteers.
On Saturday, the city Department of Homeless Services said there is plenty of space at other shelters to accept all those who have been sleeping in the churches. The spaces include four new faith-based sites where the number of beds combined with availability amounts to a greater total number of nights for people to stay, said Homeless Services spokeswoman Heather Janik.
There are now about 250 beds in churches, mosques and synagogues. They're close to drop-in centres where people receive other services, including food, Janik said.
"This city is investing more than ever to make sure people have a place to lay their heads at night," she said, adding the number of faith-based and other types of shelter beds will increase by 50 per cent in the next fiscal year to more than 1,000.
Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless non-profit advocacy group disputed the city figures showing an increase in beds. He said the city proposes to close down drop-in shelters overnight.
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I'm just sayin'...
Homeless shelters must get paid by the government for a “daily head count”...like at the schools.
Make no mistake: This is merely to make the churches look bad and the GubbaMint look “better”. Can’t have those irritating Christians being able to say they help the homeless, after all.
Gubbermint strikes again.
That’s kinda’ like saying if I had a couple of sponsors, I’d be a NASCAR driver.
Is Bloomberg the dictator of NYC yet?
Can anyone figure out THE REASON for this?
Not really. Most of them are hard core mentally ill, who really ought to be permanently housed in mental hospitals. They’re unemployable, even for odd jobs at totally unskilled labor. If they were rational enough to hold down any kind of job, they’d be rational enough to have gotten themselves into taxpayer-funded housing and food stamps a long time ago.
Could it be Stupidity, perhaps?
True for some of them but a lot of these folks have real bad mental problems. Just go a couple blocks from the White House to some of those parks. Its really sad to see some of those folks who are clearly insane.
in any case just follow the money...there you will find your answer
I think its time for these churches to tell the City of New York to drop dead. A government may not restrict the free exercise of religion - and one of the tenants of the Christian faith is helping those in need. New York City - drop dead.
This is Evil.
Yes, but aside from radio hosts, politicians and salesmen the rest could do more than watch "The View".
Decades ago, there were these things called "flophouses" in NY. For a buck or so, you could have a bed and a locker to put your stuff, with the bed either being in a very tiny room just big enough for the bed, or maybe in a barracks-style area. They weren't too clean, but it was a warm, fairly safe place to sleep. I'm so familiar with them because there was a time, many years ago, when I was (very temporarily) that far down.
But then city codes and regulations made it impossible to run one, plus you could not "discriminate" against troublemakers. So they went away and people get to sleep on the streets.
Gubbermint strikes again.
If Churches would stop taking fat tax bennies, I would be on the side of churches. But, they are basically taking government funds so the government can tell them what to do. I often wonder why churches don’t just raise their hands up and say “enough, I will pay the taxes”. Their lives would be easier but of course that would mean using a budget.
I daresay this is a First Amendment violation.
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