Bill de Blasio Pleads with Bloomberg to Return to the Enlightened Homeless Policies of Rudy Giuliani

On Monday the Times ran an article saying new Public Advocate Bill de Blasio "Assails Bloomberg's Performance on Homelessness." This is curious, as de Blasio's pitch is described later in the article pithily thus: "Mr. de Blasio offered several suggestions on how to improve conditions for the homeless, though none would substantially change the way the city addresses the issue."

The article referred to an upcoming news conference at which de Blasio would make clearer his homeless ideas. On Tuesday he gave the conference, at which he suggested that the city should bring back Section 8 housing subsidies for families, which had been cut off ("Due to a lack of sufficient funding at this time, the New York City Housing Authority will no longer accept any new Section 8 voucher applications or process existing Section 8 vouchers").

The Daily News points out that de Blasio is essentially asking Bloomberg to revive the policy of the relatively more homeless-friendly Giuliani Administration, which funny in a sad way.

de Blasio also asked that the city stop directing homeless clients to substandard flophouses, and stop closing down homeless shelters, citing a couple of Manhattan centers that the Bloomberg Administration plans or is thinking about closing.

No Land Grab is unimpressed. "What prevented [de Blasio]," they ask, "from standing with the protesters Monday night who held a vigil for families being evicted from the Prospect Heights shelter in the Atlantic Yards footprint that Bruce Ratner plans to turn into a parking lot?"