How did New York City get to a place in which upwards of 34,000 of its citizens is homeless? Not only this, but why does Mayor Bloomberg and other city officials find absolutely necessity in cutting the budgets for these people that seem to need the assistance most. There is no doubt that the economy is struggling, and more than ever, as the records show, new homeless families are taking to shelters at a rate higher than New York City has seen since the 1970’s. To be clear, 1,464 new families are entering New York City shelters each month.
Nonetheless, the city has already proposed a $3 million cutback in the budget for homelessness prevention programs, which leads me to ask the question, what justice is there in diminishing living standards for those already living in the least advantaged positions of a society? As Rawls’ theory of justice would argue, the standards of the least advantaged should be increased alongside those of the most advantaged. But what happens in the circumstances of a recession? What happens when standards seem to be plummeting everywhere? What happens when the capital of the advantaged is diminished so that they do not have the assets they once did to commit to responding to the conditions of the least advantaged?
The state tries to respond in the ways in which it determines as best fit and most advantageous to society. But what are the prospects of a society, such as NY, in which the governing officials deem it necessary not only to cut back on the funding of its homelessness prevention programs, but also to fire over 14,000 teachers. The inequalities between the rich and the poor are only going to increase further as a result of this. The quality of education that the least advantaged in a society receives is continually decreasing in quality with respect to those more advantaged. Consequently, the least advantaged have less and less hope of having the opportunity to be equally qualified for the job market as a result of their diminished human capital that the government fails to provide.
The short term budget considerations I’m sure look functionable on paper, but I believe that the long term ramifications of the budget cuts to the homelessness prevention programs and especially to the cut bucks on educators will drastically diminish opportunity to develop human capital and ultimately save costs for future governing officials.
http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/recordhigh.html
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If you read the article linked at the bottom of the original post, the reporter mentions a quote from Mayor Bloomberg at very end: “The bottom line is we need $1 billion more in revenue.” Bloomberg is in such a tight squeeze as mayor, that even he directly admits that the city will need a substantial amount of revenue. Do not be fooled by those federal aid stimulus plans that use number like four hundred billion to fool you. One billion dollars is still an incredibly large amount of money for the entire city to need. With the worsening economic conditions, the city is forced to make cuts, not just in the funding to the homeless shelters and services but to every facet of the city’s governance. Very convincing arguments can be made to maintain the funding for almost every single one of the civil welfare programs that the city provides, including the public schools, the fire department…etc. If the city keeps the funding for the homeless shelters now, the city risks greater consequences if it cannot maintain its budget and in the worst-case scenario declares bankruptcy. If that happens, there will not be any homeless shelters, any good public school, adequate fire departments…etc. Thus, while it is not enjoyable to cut shelters’ funding, the cuts along with all the other civil services cuts probably are necessary. On a side note, the public schools in New York City are notorious for the failures as educational institutions. Part of this is to blame on the teachers and their union. The linked article below will give you a little more of an inside look into the United Federations of Teachers. The UFT is one of the most powerful trade unions in the country. It is so strong that is almost impossible for the city to fire a teacher even if they are guilty of certain crimes. This is a huge cost to the city and its kids, so while I’m sure some good teachers might loose their jobs as well, the cut will benefit the public school system in New York in one way.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill
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