The False Debate on Homelessness
Homelessness is the natural result of a system that makes some fantastically wealthy and others desperately poor.
Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio just can’t get along.
Shortly after the New Year, Cuomo, New York’s governor, issued an executive order mandating that New York City transport homeless people sleeping outside in sub-freezing temperatures to shelters.
In response, Mayor de Blasio’s administration announced that, regardless of weather conditions, the police can’t expel people from public property — and that if they bring them to a shelter, they can’t make them stay. “To forcibly remove all homeless individuals in freezing weather, as the governor has ordered,” de Blasio spokeswoman Karen Hinton said, “will require him to pass state law.”