The Coalition for the Homeless released its annual shock report on Monday, and . . . whaddya know — the sky is falling yet again.
According to the report, an all-time high of 113,553 people slept in homeless shelters last year — and nearly 40,000 did so during a single winter night.
But the report ends at June 2010, which means it shows 10-month-old figures that ignore recent positive trends.
Such as: The number of families with children seeking shelter is down 6 per cent this year, an important index.
Meanwhile, the Coalition cherry-picked numbers from after its period of study, using one night in February 2011 as a sign of the apocalypse.
Fact is, these folks look at new data only when it serves their interests.
This is not to pretend all is well. The morbid economy is taking its toll — as did a long and miserable winter.
But the city has been doing admirable and innovative work, creating programs like Advantage that slowly wean the homeless off the dole.
Ninety percent of families helped that way stay out of shelters. And the last 15 months have seen 13,000 job placements for the homeless, 3,000 this year alone.
The Coalition’s solution is a dead end: dispensing open-ended Section 8 housing vouchers to homeless families.
That’s both impossible — the waiting list has more than 100,000 names already — and pure folly, as it’s a recipe for keeping families on welfare indefinitely.
As Commissioner of Homeless Services Seth Diamond told The Post: “They use misleading data, and their political prescriptions are pure fantasy.”
Right on both counts.