Bed-Stuy Among Hardest Hit By City 'Homelessness Crisis': Data

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — More people entered housing shelters in Bed-Stuy than almost every other neighborhood in the city, according to data released in a new plan to combat homelessness.

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson on Thursday unveiled the plan, "Our Homelessness Crisis: A Case For Change," from the steps of City Hall. He described a humanitarian crisis sweeping across the city — and data shows Bed-Stuy is among the hardest hit neighborhoods.

Bed-Stuy ranked eighth in city districts last year for the number of entries — about 20,000 — into homeless shelters.

It's the second-most in Brooklyn. Only the district encompassing East New York and Cypress, Spring Creek, Starrett City, Gateway and Highland Park, had more with nearly 30,000 — the most in the city.

"These are human beings and we have failed them over and over and over again," Johnson said.

The plan developed by Johnson's team calls for increasing the value of rental vouchers to help people avoid entering the shelter system.

Other pegs include forming a team to work with homeless people who live on the street and the creation of a deputy mayor position who will cover both homelessness and housing.

His team published data to illustrate the homelessness crisis and focus attention on solutions.

The Bronx overall had 250,000 entries into homeless shelters last year, the most of any other borough last year, according to the data. But Brooklyn wasn't far behind with 189,000.

Homeless shelters at times have proven controversial in Bed-Stuy. Some residents argued the city "dumped" homeless shelters into the neighborhood over other locations, the Gothamist reported.

The plan unveiled Thursday calls to "support our sheltered neighbors" by increasing support for formerly incarcerated people, runaways and victims of domestic violence, in addition to boosting "economic empowerment" services.

It also included plans to combat street homelessness through outreach and alternatives to shelters.

Another plan championed by Mayor Bill de Blasio focused more on street homelessness by calling on 18,000 city employees to report homeless people to 311. It recently came under fire when photos of its "command center" showed what appeared to be police monitoring and mapping the locations of homeless New Yorkers.