New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday his biggest disappointment as mayor has been the homelessness crisis that plagued the city for the past eight years.
De Blasio, who presided over a rise in homelessness in New York that mirrored those of other big cities throughout the United States, said the increase was the “greatest disappointment” of his eight-year tenure, which will expire when the term-limited mayor leaves office at the end of this year.
“The thing I’ve struggled with and we finally are making some profound progress, but it’s homelessness,” de Blasio said Friday morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “I’m happy to say that after some absolute early misunderstandings and missteps on my part, that I’ve owned up to, we’ve found some strategies that are working much better to get people off the streets. Our shelter population has gone down greatly. It’s much lower than when I took office.”
DE BLASIO ‘DOESN’T CARE’ ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE, SAYS BLACK LIVES MATTER OF GREATER NEW YORK ORGANIZER
The total number of people in shelters, including adults and children, was 45,624 as of Thursday, according to the New York City Department of Homeless Services, a decrease from the overall shelter high of 61,415 in January 2019, also under de Blasio. There were 53,615 people in homeless shelters in the city of New York in January 2014, the month de Blasio assumed office, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.
The decrease in numbers is partly because of COVID-19, according to Councilman Stephen Levin, who heads the committee that oversees the homelessness agencies.
“The de Blasio administration inherited a homelessness crisis that was out of control,” Levin told the New York Post. “The dramatic drop has been due to the eviction moratorium.”
After Congress allowed a measure barring evictions throughout the country to expire at the end of July, several localities moved to pass local measures halting evictions. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul convened a special session of the New York State Legislature to extend the eviction moratorium at the beginning of September, and the measure quickly passed into law.
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Homeless encampments have become prevalent across the U.S. in cities such as Austin, Texas; Sacramento, California; and Washington.
De Blasio’s greatest accomplishment as mayor, he said Friday, was the universal pre-kindergarten program he rolled out his first year, as well as efforts to expand the availability of early education and child care for 3-year-olds. The mayor will vacate office on Dec. 31.
