For the second year in a row, the price of housing families in city homeless shelters has spiked, according to the annual Mayor’s Management Report.
The findings – which offered a mixed report card for the city – show, as the city continues to grapple with a homelessness crisis, the cost per day for sheltering families jumped to $167.84 for fiscal year 2017, which ended in June, up from $120.22. And that’s on top of last year’s jump from $105.37.
The cost for families with children rose from $121.40 to $171.21, though the number of such families seeking shelter declined to 12,595 from 13,311 in fiscal 2016. The average number of families with children in shelters each day was 12,818, up from 12,089, and their average stay in the shelters was 414 days, down from 431 last year.
The cost for adult-only families is $138.13 a day, up from $110.69. That population is growing – 1,583 such families entered shelter in fiscal year 2017, up from 1,476. The average number of single adults in shelters each day was 13,626, up from 12,727.
As the city continues to struggle to stem the shelter population, the number of homeless people on the street also rose, according to the report. It found 3,892 New Yorkers living on streets, in parks, under highways or on public transit in fiscal 2017, up from 2,794.
There was also bad news in the city’s jails, where there were 55.2 violent inmate-on-inmate incidents per month per 1,000 inmates. Despite efforts to reform Rikers Island, that figure has risen every year of de Blasio’s tenure — and has more than doubled since fiscal year 2013, when it was 27.2.
Inmate assaults of staff have also risen to a rate of 8.4 per month per 1,000, up from 7.9 last year and 4.7 in fiscal 2013.
But there was plenty for Mayor de Blasio to celebrate in the report. Major felonies declined from 105,614 to 98,991, a 6% drop, and murder dropped from 341 in fiscal 2016 to 300 in fiscal 2017. Major felony crime in public housing, on transit and in schools all fell.
Meanwhile, 911 response times improved. End-to-end ambulance responses to life threatening medical emergencies dropped from 9:09 minutes to 8:56; for response time to all crimes in progress, it went from 10:35 to 10:06.
Traffic fatalities — which Hizzoner has vowed to eventually get to zero through his Vision Zero program — also decreased. Total traffic deaths dropped by 10.6% from 236 to 211. For drivers and their passengers, the number of fatalities from 84 to 63; for bikers and pedestrians, the drop from 152 deaths in 2016 to 148 in 2017 was much less substantial.
“The Mayor’s Management report isn’t just a collection of numbers, or a tool of good government. It’s also a statement of who we are as New Yorkers and the kind of leadership we demand from those who serve us,” de Blasio said. “As New Yorkers strive to deepen the progress we’ve made together, the need for strategic, data-driven decision making has never been greater.”
