The New Yorker Magazine is providing some free reads at the moment. Hopefully, you’ll catch one before they close the window, because what follows is a fascinating story of how a single person, once a social worker and now a journalist, can take on a city of millions and win a battle for the truth.
David Brand has been writing articles for a non-profit news outlet. His focus has been on New York’s huge homeless shelter system. Early in his budding career, he was warned about the City’s wonky methods of reporting homelessness numbers. Needless to say, it piqued his curiosity, and so began a mission to get to the bottom of the matter.
The long and the short of it, turning eventually to compiling the numbers himself from City information acquired by freedom of information requests, Brand was able to show the City is undercounting the homeless by about 20%.
Has he managed to attract the city’s attention on this matter? Not just big time, but the biggest time! Mayor Eric Adams’s new administration will begin using Brand’s accounting measures.
Read more at THE NEW YORKER: Why Thousands of People Are Left Out of New York City’s Daily Homeless Census
. . . and follow Brand’s reporting work at City Limits: NYC Shelter Count 2022
