Posted on June 20, 2017 by Dan Rosenblum in City and State City and State, By Dan Rosenblum Advocates are pushing state legislators to pass bills and embrace partnerships and proposals that would chip away at the homelessness problem before the state legislative session ends Wednesday. As the number of New York City residents in homeless shelters has exceeded 60,000, the city and state have sparred – in subtle and not-so-subtle ways – to address the problem. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has pledged to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over a 10-year period and proposed a plan to open 90 additional homeless shelters over the next five years. Meanwhile, the state has committed to building 20,000 units of supportive housing over the next 15 years, the first 6,000 units of which have been funded in this year’s state budget.
