NY Working HOMELESS Charged Rent

More.

Mayor Bloomberg Saturday defended a new policy that's forcing the city's working homeless to pay rent.

"Everybody else is doing it, and we're told we have to do it, so we're going to do it," Bloomberg said of the new policy, which requires the working homeless to pay up.

The rule, from a 1997 state law, has already affected 511 families - and could leave hundreds more stranded, advocates said.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said the "shocking" policy hurts the homeless and should be reversed.

"If this is a state requirement, New York City should be taking the lead in getting it changed," Stringer said.

"It makes no sense," said Legal Aid attorney Steven Banks, who vowed to fight it through the courts.

Latham Hotel shelter resident Lila Rodriguez, 22, said she can't afford to pay to live in the Manhattan facility.

"We don't have any money. We need help. If we had money, we wouldn't be here," Rodriguez said.

Read more, from the New York Times:

Patrick Markee, the senior policy analyst of the Coalition for the Homeless, called the policy “impractical,” arguing that most working people who live in homeless shelters earn low wages and would be better off saving for a place of their own. “It’s going to make families stay in shelter longer because they’ll have fewer financial resources,” he said.

“They are taking money from them that could otherwise be used to help themselves get out of the shelter system,” agreed Arnold S. Cohen, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for the Homeless. “We’re dealing with the poorest people, the people who are the most in need, and we’re asking them to pay for a shelter of last resort. As a city and a state that has a history of social and economic justice, I think we can do better than that.”

It's possible that the working homeless could be abusing the system by staying in a shelter for free rather than moving out and paying for housing.

As long as there are measures in place to keep that sort of abuse from happening, I think charging rent is probably counterproductive, actually prolonging people's need to stay in a shelter.

Still, maybe Jim Doyle should look into New York's law and consider proposing that Wisconsin's working homeless pay rent to live in shelters funded by the government.

If you get a paycheck, Doyle wants HIS share.