Our city cares more than your city.
Mayor Bloomberg argued today that New York is “three to 10 times” more compassionate than other urban areas when it comes to caring for the homeless, based on surveys of how many people sleep in the streets.
Bloomberg said one of about every 2,500 residents here was found living outdoors. But in Los Angeles, he said, the ratio is one in 290. In San Francisco it’s one in 259. In Seattle, one in 300. And even in tropical Miami, it’s one in 800.
“So we’re three to 10 times more compassionate as the other cities, if you use that as a measure of compassionate and assuming everybody’s measurements are the same,” Bloomberg said on his weekly WOR radio show.
He added that the number of street homeless is dropping each year.
City records show 3,262 people were counted as living on the streets in 2012, down 26 percent from the high of 4,395 in 2005 but up from the 2,648 of 2011.
Advocates have been attacking the city for making it tougher for some homeless families to get immediate housing when the temperatures drop below freezing.
Bloomberg defended the policy by saying limits have to be imposed so only the truly needy receive benefits.
“How compassionate are we? I’ve always worried about that,” he said. “You can’t be 100 percent. Can’t devote all our resources. Can’t take every bit of money from every person and spend it on the homeless.”
A record 48,834 homeless individuals were being put up as of Tuesday, about 11,000 more than before the state yanked an apartment subsidy program.
The city has budgeted $456 million for homeless services this year.