Group: Record Numbers Of Homeless In NYC

According To Coalition For The Homeless, More Than 16,000 Children Were In Shelters By End Of September
CBS News
Oct. 15, 2009

The economy may be poised for a rebound but for a lot of people times are very tough.

According to a new report, the number of homeless people sleeping in New York City shelters has reached an all time high at 39,000 -- many of them are children.

Using New York City's own data, a homeless group claims a record number of people are in city shelters, particularly children, despite years of programs that were supposed to bring homeless numbers down. But perhaps the best way to understand this is to listen to a woman trying to hold her family together.

Most of us walk through the streets of the city thinking about our own problems. Hopefully, that does not include where we're going to sleep tonight. But for more and more New Yorkers, that's not the case, especially for children.

Mary Brosnahan, longtime executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless used the city's own data, and says homelessness has been increasing each of the last five years, and currently is at an all-time high. At the end of September, 10,494 homeless families lived in shelters, including 16,615 homeless children.

"What does that mean for those children, and their future? That they will spend a substantial amount of their childhood … in a homeless shelter?" asked Bill de Blasio, the chairman of the City Council General Welfare Committee.

Here's what it means from a woman living it right now.

"I wake up, travel two hours to get them to the same school 'cause Ii wanted them to have that sense of normalcy. And I just … always promised myself that I would never put them through this again," Bernadette Miles said.

But they are going through "it" -- homelessness -- again. In 2006, Miles, newly divorced, and her three children -- the kind of people you walk past every day -- were evicted when she lost her job. But she got another job and takes home $1,800 a month. But her rent is $1,500. With food, and other bills, they're about to be evicted again.

"This is the most embarrassing thing to have to go through," Miles said. "It was almost hard for me to look at my children's faces, when the marshals came and put us out of our house. And I promised that I would never put them through this again, which is why I worked so hard to get a job, which is why I worked so hard to find a place, only to find out that I'm in the same position I was in three years ago."

Miles said she was advised by some agencies to quit her job and go on welfare. She said she does not want to set that example for the children.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)