Mayor Bill de Blasio thinks he can reduce the number of homeless people in New York City shelters by 2,500 over the next five years, according to his latest plan for homelessness, announced Feb. 27, 2017.

At the same time, the City plans to build 90 new homeless shelters over the next five years — about 20 per year. The extra beds should allow the City to stop using 360 temporary sites to house homeless people. Furthermore, the City plans to stop renting clusters of apartments for emergency shelters by the end of 2021, and to stop renting commercial hotel facilities by the end of 2023.

The City will also continue its “prevention first” strategy to try to keep people from becoming homeless — including rental subsidies and supportive housing.

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