As the Co-RA for a community service themed Explorations community, it is my responsibility to not only provide volunteer opportunities to my residents but also to provide educational experiences for them so that they are able to contextualize their work in the community. Tonight, we hosted a director from the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) who is an NYU alum. He was GREAT! The speaker provided us with a ton of important, startling information and gave all of us a better sense as to what the NYC homeless situation is like and how it is being addressed.
The goal of DHS is to find housing for homeless people--initially through shelters but ideally in a permanent setting. We learned that in the Fiscal Year 2009, NYC will spend $754 million on Homeless Services and in 2008, 3,300 individuals and families are estimated to be homeless on the streets (while 35,000 individuals and families currently reside in a NYC shelter). Something I found quite interesting was the discrepancy between the NYC homeless system in comparison to virtually every other U.S. city. The speaker helped us better understand the meaning of $754 million when he compared it to $525,108,935 that is the entire operating budget for Miami and the $15,565,853 operating budget for Wasilla, Alaska.
These are just some of the statistics our speaker from DHS provided us with. He facilitated an intriguing conversation and answered many questions to help my residents and others better understand some of the behind-the-scenes things that go into DHS and homelessness in NYC.