Yesterday, Mayor de Blasio announced plans to reform and reorganize two of the city's largest family shelters, with the goal of transferring over 400 children from the city-owned shelters and into subsidized permanent housing or temporary shelters. The children and their families will be removed from the Auburn Family Shelter in Fort Greene and the Catherine Street Family Shelter in Lower Manhattan, both of which have long been criticized for their squalid living conditions.
"We won't leave these children and these families behind. We believe in our fundamental responsibility to lift up those going through adversity and crisis," said de Blasio in a statement. "The transition at the Auburn and Catherine Street shelters is our first public step in a larger strategy to improve homeless services, while we address the underlying causes that have left a record-number of adults and children living in New York City shelters."
Auburn is perhaps best known for housing 12-year-old Dasani Coates and her family, the recent subjects of a widely-circulated series of articles on the plight of homeless families in New York City.
· "New York Is Removing Over 400 Children From 2 Homeless Shelters" [NYT]
· "Mayor Announces Reforms to Two Large Homeless Shelters" [NYO]
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