Some NYC churches ordered not to shelter homeless
Posted on November 23rd, 2008 by bile Tags: Arnold Cohen, Department of Homeless Services, homeless, Manhattan, New York City, NYC, shelterNEW YORK (CBS) ― City officials have ordered 22 New York churches to stop providing beds to homeless people.
With temperatures well below freezing early Saturday, the churches must obey a city rule requiring faith-based shelters to be open at least five days a week — or not at all.
Arnold Cohen, president of the Partnership for the Homeless, a nonprofit that serves as a link with the city, said he had to tell the churches they no longer qualify.
He said hundreds of people now won’t have a place to sleep.
The Department of Homeless Services said the city offers other shelters with the capacity to accept all those who have been sleeping in the churches. The city had 8,000 beds waiting.
The homeless can be coaxed indoors but not forced unless their life is in danger.
At times in the past it’s been hard to show the causation between the regulations the State makes, the social programs it provides and the decline in private charities. This time however its not only outright obvious but downright horrible. What next? Soup kitchens must provide several types of soup, including a vegetarian one, or else they can’t feed the homeless?
