Homeless In NYC

Last summer the New York Times ran a story on how the Bloomberg administration has paid for 550 families to leave the city since 2007, as a way of keeping them out of the homeless shelter program

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

@ BroadwayBK Well that most certainly is not the case, no matter what the perception. I once had to go to the emergency room in Berlin for a broken rib. I got seen by a physician within a few minutes, they did an Xray promptly, and when the bill came a couple of weeks later, it was for a whopping 60 Euro. Can you imagine paying so little here for the same quality of treatment. Which makes me pretty confident that health care costs in this country are senseless and insane. Obviously other places have figured out how to make basic services affordable to all, why can't we?

@Uraniumfish I quite agree with you , I have first hand experienced great care at Britian's NHS system which I think is excellent for emergency care but has long waiting lists for things like hip replacements etc. I have family in England who are reluctant to move to the US or elsewhere because they dont want to lose their access to the free health care that is available on the NHS.

NYC used to be totally overrun with homeless people about 15 years ago. They had closed down a major mental hospital and just let all these ill people go. Most of them had nowhere to go and were too sick to really sustain themselves. It was incredibly sad. I kind of "adopted" two people in my neighborhood who were clearly ill and otherwise helpless, and made sure I always had some change for them when I passed by.