businesses are looking for a permanent solution to the homeless encampments outside of their establishments they have mattresses they got um the the cushions from the couches they made a little bed under here when it rains it's been really bad so there are over a 100,000 homeless people living in New York City and as the cost to live here continues to rise sadly that number is expected only to grow yet the city's only plan to help the homeless is to tell them to leave or to arrest them tents were torn down on Monday and loaded into waiting garbage trucks all part of the mayor's plan to crack down on Street homelessness it's rough it's tough you're not trying to whole you know metime job and pay rent and things of that nature but happens the best of us unfortunately the Adams Administration says more than 1,000 formerly homeless people have been given services and placed in housing in the last year there lot of them man we need help for them you know well the situation getting bed in bed because there's a lot of homeless people you know sleeping on the sidewalk we cannot stop people from living on the streets but we cannot tolerate these makeshift unsafe houses yeah I came here in January I'm 60 years old I work 35 years I'm a college graduate I have no record and I sleep on the sidewalk they're on the side they're always asking they come in here sometimes the department of sanitation came in and cleared the area Monday night but she told us homeless were already making their way back this is not a new phenomenon we put in place our Subway safety plan we sent out Outreach Beach workers I spent a lot of time in the system walking through but one homeless individual says going to a shelter is like a prison sentence for [Music] him citing safety the city is now moving the mentally ill out of the Subways and off the streets but what nobody's talking about is that every time the city arrests someone who may be homeless it's the city's own laws and policies that are partially responsible for their dire predicament because as much as New York wants to tout its compassion for those who are struggling the city itself does everything in its power to bankrupt its residents New Yorkers already pay some of the highest rents in America approaching $6,000 a month for a one bedroom groceries are through the roof not just because of inflation but because rampant crime forces stores to make up their losses by jacking up prices and on top of that the city is failing its residents by battling two simultaneous homeless crisises at once and losing both of them the Coalition for the homeless reports that last year 93,000 people were living in shelters 33,000 of whom were children plus we've got 60,000 Asylum Seekers living in a separate homeless shelter system with its own emergency infrastructure giving New York City an estimated homeless population of around 150,000 people but the real reason homelessness here is an ever expanding ever growing problem is because over the last year of the 10% of households that left the shelter system only 2.6% ended up transitioning to permanent housing which essentially means the homeless shelters here are just revolving door operations that cost a lot of money to run yet get very few results partly because the city's methods of helping people actually make the entire situation worse and the problem's growing fastest in a part of the city that's not visible from the street and that place is right beneath our [Music] feet so here we are in the New York City subway and before we uncover how the city is exasperating this crisis it's important to understand that the number of encampments down here recently has been growing it's a great feeling when you're on your way to work and the train pulls into the station without a long wait but that relief Fades fast when you get into the car of an our train and it looks like a Subway homeless encampment this is not a new phenomenon what we have done is we have aggressively stated we were not going to sit so it looks like the city's aware that the subway is turning into a refuge for those who have nowhere else to go which is very sad but also very bad not because the homeless themselves are bad but because this is a bad place to try and live and with all the money New York City has access to one has to wonder why this is the best accommodations some people are able to find first the subway is Extremely Loud then you have rats and disease down here and crime is so bad it's basically a military occupation Zone with the National Guard deployed at several stations and the other problem is the Subway's true purpose is to function as a cheap affordable means of transportation which means it can't also double as a visual example of how New York's wore on homelessness is not going well despite the millions of dollars being spent on it on top of that the way that the city has been clearing out the subway is a bit controversial we put in place our Subway safety plan we sent out Outreach workers I spent a lot of time in the system walking through the Adams Administration says more than 1,000 formerly homeless people have been given services and placed in housing first of all kudos to city leaders for not completely ignoring the problem and the way that they go about trying to assist people who might be down here in need of assistance is through Outreach work and although Outreach workers do provide a valuable service offering assistance to those who may not know it exists there is controversy over their deployment and how they go about rendering so-called assistance to those who might need it these teams consist of an aid worker along with two or three MTA police officers and their job is to roam the subway looking for people who might be trying to make the subway itself a permanent residence of some type or to set up some sort of encampment and apparently when they find someone who's in a relatively vulnerable looking position they interact with them and see what's going on and it's at this point in the process where some folks are involuntarily detained and taken to a certain location against their will now according to New York state law it is legal to take someone who might be a danger to themselves or others out of a public space to keep them safe but even this is not the most controversial part of this entire process Subway crime remains a top priority for Riders the NYPD is now deploying 1,000 police officers a day into the subway system there was a 13.2% drop in crime over the last 28 days so the NYPD they are down here along with the National Guard trying to deal with the Subway's crime problem which means they don't have the resources to assist every single person on their own and this is where the controversy comes in because the city uses a third- party company to help them do that this company that the city contracts with for eight assistants it costs $103 million for their latest contract on top of that the company involved in this contract their purpose is specifically to provide Outreach Services to local governments they don't provide services to the private Market all their money comes from governments does this make them bad no it doesn't however since 2019 there have been complaints about the effectiveness of this particular group's ability to provide Outreach Services and make a difference down here in 2019 the MTA Inspector General said that the company at best provided minimal Outreach Services and accused this nonprofit of even denying service requests from people who obviously needed it furthermore in 2020 the state com controller mentioned that this particular group wasn't even providing accurate information on how many people they offered assistance to think about that you have the city paying millions of dollars for Outreach Services and they don't even know how many people are receiving help this is obviously a bad situation lots of money being spent very little accountability and on top of that it seems like this particular company is designed to profit specifically from these types of contracts the CEO earns over $400,000 a year on top of that the company itself is responsible for billing the city over $220,000 in completely unauthorized expenses some of which were related to a booze cruise in the river Harbor that they played off as staff training and Recruitment and although the city's mismanagement of its resources are part of the reason why encampments and the presence of unhoused people in the subway is growing as you're about to see this mismanagement it's not just happening down here it's also happening up on the street so here we are in one of the busiest areas of lower Manhattan Soho there's tons of high-end stores all around but at the exact same time it's very sad to see that there are people here who have nowhere else to go and as you can imagine this isn't just an issue here that the city is struggling to deal with businesses on East kingsb Road are looking for a permanent solution to the homeless encampments outside of their establishments they have mattresses they got um the the cushions from so obviously this neighborhood a little bit different we've got a police car right there it's more of like a tourist hot spot there may be more money coming into this neighborhood for things like Outreach and assistance but it's sad to see that residents and people in need in the Bronx aren't able to get this same level of help because it can be tough to run a profitable business when there are encampments on the sidewalk directly in front of it and the reason a situation like that is so sad is because we already know the city's overspending on expensive contracts which are not able to keep every area of town in the same level of condition as this one because those companies aren't helping people get off the street but part of the reason for that is the city's expensive shelters they're not exactly a vacation not that they're expected to be but many guests say that they are overcrowded and possibly dangerous and not only are these sediments that are confirmed by multiple news outlets when I did volunteer work at the holy Apostle soup kitchen and at the Bowery Mission I heard from individuals that the shelters were the last place they wanted to spend any time even in the winter time people preferred to try and take their chances on the street rather than at a facility where their belongings might get stolen or their personal safety might be at risk Department of Sanitation came in and cleared the area on Monday night well she told us homeless were already making their way back this Tuesday people don't don't want to come in because when they're not there on the friend the sore they're on the side they're always asking they come in here now what's sad about this is that when the city rolls through an area of town and clears out a bunch of encampments they tell those same individuals to use the city's resources to get themselves assistance but that's part of the problem and according to this article only 9% of people who make it into the city shelters ever make it out to a permanent housing solution which shows that for some reason no matter how much money is spent helping homeless people through shelters and other means of Outreach the more the problem continues to grow and this has people asking themselves who's really benefiting from a homeless industrial complex if it's not the people who are in it and is it even possible for a privately run government funded homeless shelter to seek the elimination of its funding by actually solving a problem there may not be an immediate straightforward answer to that question but one thing's for certain businesses are going to start shutting down if the city doesn't increase its resources to neighborhoods where this is becoming a growing issue it's lot of them man need help for them you know business owners and workers are not only concerned about how this is hid in their pockets but also how this is impacting the neighborhood also and you know what's sad about this is every one of those business owners they're going to be threatened with homelessness themselves if the city doesn't do something to help the people who are homeless and these businesses are on record stating that the city's failure to help people is driving away customers which is ridiculous because here we are Funding Solutions to a problem that nobody's dealing with and it doesn't take a genius to see what the long-term ramifications of this are going to end up being but that brings us to another problem affecting many of the people who don't have a place to stay exploitation recently it's come out that much of New York City's retail theft related problems are due to criminals exploiting those who are vulnerable offering them money in exchange for stealing now New York City's laws that don't punish theft if it's under $1,000 certainly aren't helping but in essence what you have is a situation where criminals will say hey if you're in a tough spot and you need money go to a store steal as much stuff as you can bring it to my warehouse and I will pay you in cash for all of that the criminals then turn around and sell those stolen goods either online or at other physical businesses here in New York which makes a lot of money for the kingpins in these operations built on the backs of those who need the city's help the most and this is causing major issues all over the city the city's largest mall the Falon Center that cost over a billion dollars to build but it recently closed the tenant pulling out citing crime as an issue crime which was connected sadly to homelessness which was making it impossible for them to lease out their Mall spaces to store candidates that would be able to turn a profit and operate in that type of environment and the result is that all of the foot traffic in that facility dried up you couldn't even keep the hogas open and these business owners are asking the city to remove these homeless and to place them in a program where they can receive the assistance they need including mental health so this is very sad for a couple of reasons first the city charges all of us residents businesses an arm and a leg just to be here and people pay so much in taxes and fees just to even get an apartment here and get a job here and how is it fair for the law abiding to watch their neighborhoods deteriorate as they themselves get priced out of those very same neighborhoods unfortunately the answer to those questions is not exactly reassuring because although the city both collects and spends millions of dollars Austin tensi for the benefit of the city itself at the exact same time the city is passing laws that make it harder for all of us to live here while at the exact same time failing to pass laws that Advocates say would do the one thing the city needs to get out of a situation that is creating the homelessness that we see around us [Music] okay this is perfect right behind me we've got some of the leftover affordable apartments that an average person who's still Rich by American Standards might be able to find something to live in a tiny apartment for several thousand a month but look at these buildings they are hundreds of years old ancient architecture and although across the street we have a beautiful Masterpiece of modern architectural design the cheapest place you're going to find in here cost $2 million and it is a 600t one-bedroom apartment not exactly affordable but the problem is these are the only types of Apartments being built in New York City stuff that's super expensive that nobody can afford because it's impossible to build anything here and that's the reason why you see so many Antiquated outdated buildings that are still standing in a city that makes sense you would tear these down and replace them once they lost their usefulness but since it's impossible to replace buildings like this millions are spent keeping them up an inefficient solution to a problem caused by inefficiency and without some sort of affordable housing solution every single one of us is going to wander if we'll be able to afford even to live in a little place like this and another byproduct of not building anything is that as more and more people try to come here the rents for the apartments that are available keep going up and whereas last year saw record apartment rents of around 5600 per month this year we may break $6,000 once summer hits and what this essentially means is that if you're not rich how on Earth are you going to recover from a financial situation that lands you out on the street as rent go up faster than anything else this is why so few people in the city's shelters ever transition to a permanent home there aren't any available now the city's aware of the huge housing deficit they face and they've come out with a goal to build 500,000 new homes over the next 10 years but unfortunately last year we only Built about half that number 27,000 homes last year 16,000 homes the year before and to make matters worse even if the city were on track to hit that 500,000 home goal it would just keep Pace with population growth things wouldn't actually get any more affordable but sad New York may never come to a place where affordable housing ever gets built and that's because it's a well-known fact that adding houses to a housing market at any price point even if there's super expensive luxury houses presses down the price of all of the surrounding property just by virtue of there being more of it and that's something that anybody who bought that $2 million 600t studio in that building down the street doesn't want to happen because it's going to make their investment worth less and what this means is that if you already own an apartment the worst thing to happened to you would be for new apartments to get built lowering the value of your investment and since everyone who owns property just wants to get rich by virtue of being a property owner this is going to be something people actively are against actively vote against and for this reason forced scarcity will continue in New York whether people want it to or not one proposed solution to this of course would be to allow the construction of multi-unit rental buildings those don't necessarily devalue individual condo ownership because you've got 50 units in one building that cost Millions to build those units will never be individually sold therefore they won't screw up your residual value as a homeowner but alas this too would bring down rents because now there's more competition for tenants which would bring down the value of your $2 million apartment because now there are less use cases for it which is simple math if something's harder to rent it can't be worth as much how would you fix New York City's housing problem which many people point to as the reason why we have a growing homelessness epidemic in this city and what more could the city do to help those who think living on the streets is their best option could they improve the shelters could they offer more services let me know what you think I'll see you in the next video
