Council Member Erik Dilan on homelessness

s the economy has worsened and an increasing number of people have fallen on hard times financially, many Council Members are grappling with the problem of homelessness in their districts. One such councilmember is Eric Martin Dilan who represents the 37^th District in Brooklyn, which takes in parts of Bushwick, Cypress Hills, East New York, Ocean Hill Brownsville and Wyckoff Heights.

One of the efforts Dilan has been engaged in is getting the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) to make available to members of the City Council, as the City Charter requires them to do, a 5-year plan which will include the amount of capital projects they expect to undertake that calendar year. With this information in hand, Council Members are in a better position to bring about a collaborative effort between DHS and the community when it comes to such things as choosing sites for homeless shelters, which remains a very sensitive issue in many communities. Often when residents hear that a homeless shelter is being considered for their area, they don't think of it as housing people from right there in the community who have lost their homes, but as hoards of strangers from the outside descending upon them.

"It would be preferable to have homeless individuals be able to go to a shelter within their own communities," Dilan stated. "I think that would make the pressures and burdens on them a little bit easier to bear. But," he continued, "what I would really like to see is for us to have as small a homeless population as possible."

Dilan feels that shelters are not the answer: real housing is. He states, "I think the Department of Housing Preservation should have more money to take homeless individuals and put them into homes. That should be more of the focus of DHS, too - to put individuals into homes, not shelters. I'm for creating more affordable housing for low income people, not just for the middleclass."

He also pointed out, "The face of homelessness is changing. It's not so much the mentally ill or substance abusers any more. These are just working people who have seen the cost of their rents skyrocket and seen the opportunities for employment dry up in this economic crisis. It's average hardworking people who take it really hard emotionally that they have to go through this situation." And he concluded, "Hopefully our economy can recover and do more to service these people - get them into meaningful employment so they can just go about their lives like everyone else."