MAYOR BLOOMBERG FOUND GUILTY IN THE HOMELESS PEOPLE'S COURT!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Abdul Sabur or Nikita Price: 646-314-6423. nikita@picturethehomeless.org

 

New York, NY. — Homeless people and their supporters staged an elaborate “mock trial” of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg today, at the four-year mark of Mayor Bloomberg’s ambitious Five Year Plan to revolutionize homeless services and significantly reduce the city’s homeless population.  

 

“I would like to say unequivocally that this plan has failed,” said Episcopal Archdeacon Michael Kendall, a witness for the prosecution. “This city has turned its back on the poor. Homeless people are being turned away from shelter; I spoke with one woman who was told she wasn’t really homeless—she could go sleep in her mother’s bathtub and put her baby in the sink. Meanwhile the number of apartments in empty buildings citywide exceeds the number of homeless households. So how can Mayor Bloomberg say that this plan is working?”

 

Several City Council Members and the New York City Comptroller’s office attended or sent representatives and written statements of support.  

 

“When it comes to the homeless population, the Mayor has failed,” said New York City Council Member Tony Avella. “What is the Mayor doing in every neighborhood? Putting up high-rise luxury housing. That doesn’t benefit the people who live in those neighborhoods—it hurts them. When the Mayor and others talk about ‘affordable housing,’ it’s an absolute joke. It’s not going to the people who need it.”

 

Together with Picture the Homeless, Council Member Avella has introduced “Housing, Not Warehousing” Legislation, to create housing for the homeless out of the tens of thousands of potential apartments in empty buildings and lots citywide.

 

“Mayor Bloomberg has a vision for this city,” testified Karim Abdul Muhammad, of the Coalition to Save Harlem. “And it doesn’t include us. It’s a vision best-expressed in the proposed 125^th Street Rezoning Plan—which says that development should suit the interests of real estate and big business, and long time low-income residents need to get out of the way.”

 

Despite repeated requests to the Mayor and to more than 60 employees of his administration, no one attended or submitted material to testify for the defense. 

 

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