A fierce debate erupted yesterday over Mayor Giuliani’s plan to force the homeless to work for their shelter, with the mayor describing it as “compassionate” and critics blasting it as “Dickensian.”
Mayoral aides said the work-for-beds plan would be implemented before the end of the year – for single adults and parents with children.
Able-bodied parents who refuse job assignments could lose their children to foster care, the mayoral aides said.
“This is the highest form of compassion and love, to help people help themselves,” said Giuliani during a visit upstate to Troy, where he campaigned for Republican mayoral candidate Carmella Mantello.
Back at City Hall, City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, the city’s top Democrat, called Giuliani’s initiative “a throwback to the days of Dickens.”
“The way to bring people back into society is not to take their children back from them,” Vallone said.
He made vague threats about council hearings and lawsuits.
Steve Banks of the Legal Aid Society, counsel to the Coalition for the Homeless, insisted the mayor’s threat to remove children from their parents “is not permitted under existing court orders.”
Tony Coles, the mayor’s senior adviser, said the administration intended to proceed based on several court rulings that upheld a 1997 change in state law aimed at pushing the homeless to self-sufficiency.
“If you refuse to work, is this one of those situations that falls into neglect or abuse?” asked Giuliani. “And of course our Administration for Children’s Services should be concerned about that.”
The mayor compared his homeless initiative to the requirement that welfare recipients work for their checks. Since “workfare” was implemented in March 1995, the welfare rolls have dropped by 520,000.
“Re-establishing the work ethic in New York City has been a full-time job of mine,” Giuliani said.
Advocates for the homeless said the mayor was being heartless.
“The plan presented by Giuliani goes against everything we’ve learned in 20 years of helping the homeless,” said Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless.
Arnold Cohen at the Partnership for the Homeless agreed, saying: “These short-term fixes just don’t work.”
The city provides shelter for 7,000 singles and 4,600 families. Patrick Markee, a senior policy analyst for Brosnahan, said 80 to 90 percent of homeless families have already been screened for workfare because they’re on welfare, as are 50 percent of homeless singles.
One advocate for the homeless backing Giuliani was George McDonald, whose Doe Fund since 1990 has trained 900 homeless individuals to look out for themselves.
“Work is the best therapy,” McDonald said. “Citizens should walk up to our guys and ask them whether the homeless should work.”