Saturday, August 11, 2012

New York City Homeless Shelters Hit Record Numbers

New York City, America's largest city in the last two months has quickly opened nine new homeless shelters to help house the growing number of homeless. 18,256 children and 25,475 adults now live in New York City's homeless shelters, and this doesn't count many other homeless people not a part of the shelter system.

What kind of nation have we become where we fund wars and the building of weapons of mass destruction, and fighter jets, drones, tanks, ships and military bases across the world but allow vast numbers of American children to live in shelters, on streets, in cheap motels and in motor vehicles and on food stamps?

This state of affairs, along with huge numbers of home foreclosures, massive unemployment and faltering city services, speak loudly about America's priorities and the state of its economy. Whether it is a homeless child, an unemployed person or a forgotten military veteran and his or her family, we as a nation should be ashamed of ourselves for we could do so much better than this if only we listened to our consciences, and we opened our hearts and took action.

Dick
To learn more about New York City's homeless situation, please see "New York Acts Quickly Amid Sharp Rise in Homelessness, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/nyregion/nyc-homeless-shelters-in-record-demand-new-facilities-planned.html?pagewanted=all

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