19K Kids Sleep In NYC Shelters Each Night, Study Finds

NEW YORK CITY — Nearly 20,000 children go to sleep each night in a shelter — and New York City's next mayor can help put a permanent roof over their heads, a new study argues.

The study — "Every Family Housed" — is part of a wider effort to refocus the looming mayoral primary race on family homelessness, said Christine Quinn, the city's former City Council speaker.

Quinn now heads the shelter network Win, which released the study.

"There's more children in shelters than seats in Barclays Center,” she said.

"That this isn’t on top of the candidates’ list is jarring,” she continued.

Homelessness did feature in the first official mayoral debate on Thursday, but mostly in the context of people who live on the street and subways.

Family homelessness has long been a challenge in New York City, but the coronavirus pandemic only exacerbated it, Quinn said.

Children couldn't return to the stability of classrooms and lacked electronic devices to help them keep up in schools, she said. And families stayed in shelters longer in 2020 — an average of nearly 15 months, according to the study.

The number of families who left shelters for a permanent home in 2020 dropped 12.5 percent from the year before, the study found. Not only that, the maximum rents city's housing vouchers pay fall hundreds of dollars short, it states.

"There is not a single neighborhood where the median asking rent matches the CityFHEPS maximum rent, of the approximately 100 neighborhoods for which StreetEasy collects data," the study states. "As a result, families are in shelter for months, and in some cases years, while they search for an affordable unit."

Of families in Win shelters, 82 percent had previously stayed in a city shelter, according to the study.

Quinn said mayoral candidates are avoiding the issue of family homelessness. Maybe the "racist coverage" of the New York Post on homeless issues has scared candidates, she mused.

They'd be wrong to think New Yorkers have disdain for homeless people, she said, citing a poll that found 90 percent of city dwellers want more to be done to help people who are homeless.

"None of the candidates in the field have focused enough on homelessness, and certainly none have focused on family homelessness,” she said.

The study outlines a spate of actions the city's next mayor can take to end homelessness, from creating a new permanent team to coordinate efforts to increasing vouchers' maximum rent.

"On day one, the next mayor must have a housing plan that centers ending homelessness," it states.

Quinn said the next mayor needs to move beyond managing the homelessness challenge and work to end it.

"All a mayor has to do is decide they’re going to do it,” she said.

Win and Advocates for Children of New York will host a virtual forum May 20 with mayoral candidates to discuss their plans to address family homelessness.