It’s about love, about compassion – simply about helping one another, says one. This is Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York State. For him, his regulation, which comes into force today, is a commandment of charity, as he explains by telephone to the television station NY1. For others, especially those affected like Michael Booth, Ordinance No. 151 means incapacitation: “We have never been forced to go to a home, they were always asked.”
The governor’s decree reads literally: “All social services, police (…) and state authorities should (…) identify those individuals who are homeless and unwilling or unable to seek the protection that is for Health and safety is required in bad winter weather and accommodate them in suitable accommodation. ” And then when the temperatures drop below zero.
Harsh tone does not go down well
Nobody contradicts the goal of saving people from death by cold. The harsh tone of this arrangement, which sounds like coercion and tutelage, does not go down well, not even with this volunteer helper. “You can’t force them. Some are just scared.” Michael Booth has it too. Above all, he finds the accommodations dangerous – that would have to be changed. It was only at the end of December that a city investigation had denounced the poor conditions in most of the accommodations: bugs, mold, broken windows.
Joshua Goldfein works for the Legal Aid Society, an organization that advises people who cannot afford a lawyer. “It’s not a crime to be homeless and on the street. Police measures are not the right answer. We’d better encourage people to seek protection. But there are better ways than cops to do that.” New York City has the largest number of homeless people in the United States – over 59,000 spend nights in homes. Many thousands more have no roof over their heads. The city calls out the so-called Code Blue for them when there is frost – then more and more street workers are sent out to get people off the streets. Everything else needs a new law – not just an ordinance, the mayor says. And: the city already has all means to get people at risk off the streets.
The governor’s adviser rows back
The governor remains undeterred. If you want to sue him for his controversial regulation, then so be it. He just wanted to protect people. “It is not right to leave brothers and sisters on the street corner. It is not right to leave children there. It is not right to have homes that are so dirty and unsafe that people stay outside.”
One of his advisors is already rowing backwards – although the coercive measure applies to the mentally ill homeless, but not to mature people. But who should do this quick analysis – and who pays for it – remains unclear. Where it says love and compassion, in the end it just seems to be an ongoing dispute between governor and mayor. They are only pro forma party friends – but actually dearest enemies who accuse each other of failure and wrong politics, including when it comes to homelessness.
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