NEW YORK, NEW YORK

The song declares "If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere", but that may not be as easy as the song makes out. "Beginning tomorrow night, the city will stop giving emergency shelter to families who are reapplying for a place to stay after being ruled ineligible, officials said yesterday. The decision means that families who apply for benefits but are turned down — usually because the city believes they can stay with a friend or a relative — will find themselves without shelter as they reapply one or two more times. The toughening of the policy, which follows a rise during the summer in the number of families given emergency shelter in free public apartments, was criticized as cruel by advocates for the homeless and by some of the people it will affect." (New York Times, 11 October)
Behind the glitzy facade of the richest city in the richest country in capitalism lurks the grim reality of working class poverty. RD