New York’s Homelessness纽约无家可归者问题难解

译/聂雅真 袁兵

纽约皇后区麦斯佩斯街区的一些居民去年听说市政府已决定将当地一家宾馆改建成拥有110个床位的收容所时，一点儿都高兴不起来。他们连续几个月夜间在这家宾馆前抗议，还在该宾馆老板家和分管流浪者事务的专员家外面示威。市政府不堪压力，最后不得不稍作让步，将宾馆仅做部分改建。现在，只有30个无家可归者被安置在该宾馆。这些人都有工作。

[2] 1979年，一位无家可归的老兵因为政府没有为他提供住所而成功起诉了市政当局。自那以后，政府就承担起为无力置家者提供住所的法律责任。（纽约州宪法规定：“帮助、照顾和扶助有需要的人是公众关切的大事，应由政府及所属部门负责。”）近年来，无家可归的人增多了。鲁迪·朱利亚尼1994年任市长时，有2.4万人住在收容所；迈克·布隆伯格2002年出任市长时，收容所收容了3.1万人；比尔·德布拉西奥2014年当市长时，住在收容所里的人数为5.15万人；现在，收容所里的人数已增加到约6.3万人。

[3]这比大萧条以来的任何时候都要多，但这种比较具有误导性。无家可归的定义已经改变。上述数字不包括露宿街头的人数，因为他们难以准确统计。事实上，纽约露宿街头的人比许多小城市要少，但无家可归的人却多得多。洛杉矶居次，无家可归者有4.4万人。后面依序是西雅图（1.07万）、圣迭戈（8700）、华盛顿特区（8350）、旧金山（7000）。

[4] 2月末，德布拉西奥启动了一项计划，名为“扭转无家可归”，并宣布要在全市开办90所新的收容所。他计划到2023年不再把宾馆当作收容所，到2021年全部取消群居屋（由政府支付租金的私人公寓）。群居公寓并不便宜，而且居住状况往往很差。他的目标是，五年内将收容所的总人数削减2500人。他承认解决无家可归者问题将是一场“持久战”，并补充说，他认为这个问题无法得到解决。

[5]这可能使人想起20世纪80年代纽约市对犯罪事件听之任之的态度。针对这一问题，有人提出了一些建议，诸如对面临迫迁者增加法定补助，或者新增一种房租补贴来帮助迫迁者留在自己家中。以上是州议员安德鲁·海韦希的构想，市长和几十位议员都表示了支持。但是，除非房租大幅下降,或者制订计划建造更多住房，或两者兼顾，否则纽约市无家可归问题很难解决。

[6]在纽约，不用走多远就会看到一些人露宿街头或沿街乞讨，当地居民对此很是不满。一半以上的纽约选民说，他们发现大街上、地铁站和公园里的无家可归者越来越多。3月初，昆尼皮亚克大学做的民意调查显示，96%的纽约人认为无家可归问题是个严重问题。其中超过70%的人还认为市政府在解决无家可归问题方面做得太少。然而，做得多意味着要纽约人缴更多税，同意造更多房屋，接受在他们的街区建收容所，收容无家可归者。正如麦斯佩斯街区那样，那种做法难以为居民接受。 □

Some in Maspeth, a neighborhood in New York City’s Queens, were not at all pleased when they heard last year that City Hall had decided to convert a local hotel into a 110-bed homeless shelter. For months they held nightly protests in front of the hotel. They demonstrated outside the homes of the hotel’s owner and of the city’s homelessness commissioner. Eventually they wore down City Hall, which backed down a bit from a total conversion.Only 30 homeless men are housed in the hotel now. All of them have jobs.

[2] Since 1979, when a homeless veteran of war successfully sued the city for failing to provide him shelter, the city has had a legal duty to house those unable to afford a home. (New York’s state constitution says that “the aid,care and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state and by such of its subdivisions.”)In recent years the number of homeless people has grown. When Rudy Giuliani entered City Hall in 1994, 24,000 peo-ple lived in shelters. About 31,000 lived in them when Mike Bloomberg became mayor in 2002. When Bill de Blasio entered City Hall in 2014, 51,500 did.The number of homeless people now in shelters is around 63,000.

[3] That is more than at any time since the Great Depression, though the comparison is misleading. The de finition of homelessness has changed. These figures do not include the numbers living rough on the streets, who are hard to count accurately. New York in fact has fewer rough sleepers than many small cities but many more homeless people.Los Angeles comes next, with 44,000 homeless, followed by Seattle (10,700),San Diego (8,700), Washington, DC(8,350) and San Francisco (7,000).

[4] Mr de Blasio unveiled a plan called “Turning the Tide on Homelessness” at the end of February, and declared his intention to open 90 new homeless shelters throughout the city.He plans to end the use of hotels by 2023 and to stop using cluster sites, private apartments paid for by the city, by 2021. Cluster apartments are not cheap and are often in poor condition. The mayor aims to reduce the overall shelter population by 2,500 over five years. He conceded that combating homelessness will be a “long, long battle”, and added that he could not see an end to the problem.

[5] That may seem reminiscent of the city’s fatalistic attitude to crime in the 1980’s. There are a few ideas around, such as increasing legal aid to those facing eviction, or creating a rent subsidy designed to help people facing eviction to stay in their homes. That is the brainchild of Andrew Hevesi, a state assemblyman; it has the backing of the mayor and dozens of state lawmakers.But short of a steep decline in rents, or an extensive programme to build more housing, or both, it is hard to see the city fixing its homeless problem.

[6] New Yorkers, who do not have to walk far to see someone sleeping rough or panhandling, are not happy about this. More than half the city’s voters say they are seeing more homeless people on the streets, in the subway and in parks. A poll by Quinnipiac at the beginning of March showed that 96%of New Yorkers think homelessness is a serious problem. More than 70 of them also think the city is doing too little to help. Yet doing more would require some combination of New Yorkers paying more tax, allowing more construction and welcoming homeless shelters and their occupants into their neighborhoods. As the experience of Maspeth shows, that can be a hard sell. ■