Homeless Shelter Population Up 37% Since Bloomberg Took Office In 2002

The Mayor of Money loves data. He says numbers never lie - well, try these numbers on for size:

A record number of New Yorkers were forced into city homeless shelters last year, a new report says.

The Coalition for the Homeless says that in the 12 months ending last June 30, 113,553 New Yorkers slept in city shelters.

That's a 37% increase since 2002 when Mayor Bloomberg took office.

"A big part of this problem is caused by the failed policies of this administration," said Patrick Markee, a senior policy analyst at the coalition.

Although the annual figure is 10 months old, the coalition says the problem hasn't gotten better: In February, the number of people in homeless shelters in a single night hit an all-time high of 39,542.

Bloomberg disputes this data, says forget the overall population in the shelter system and look just at the number of families. That number, the administration says, is down from the year before.

But they don't dispute that the shelter population has increased by 37% since 2002 - the year he took over as king.

Just more evidence of the Two New Yorks - the New York that Bloomberg and Black and Trump and Wall Street and the hedge fundies inhabit and the New York that the rest of us inhabit.

And there but for the grace of the universe have we not ended up as part of the 37% increase in the shelter population.