Submitted by Christopher Walker, Nov 27, 2006 14:14

November 27, 2006

Dear Mr. Berman:

I am homeless and live in Camp LaGuardia, the shelter mentioned in your news article. As of today, I will have lived in a New York City homeless shelter for three years, five months and ten days now. That's a long time by any standard, and one I am amazed at even as I type this sentence. This, of course, was not by choice, but because all my best efforts to move out of the shelter system were thwarted by the very people who said they were going to move me into permanent affordable housing.

That is why I found the assertion by the Bloomberg administration in your article that they have been successful in moving homeless people into appropriate housing rather fradulent. It is obvious that in regards to me that is not the case. And yet I still languish in a system that has failed me at every turn. And cost the taxpayers of this great city an extraordinary amount of money that could have been well spent somewhere else. For I am here to tell you, that no one in the end benefits from this corrupt, totally irresponsible, and unresponsive system. Not me, not the taxpayer, and most certainly not the hundreds of other homeless people just like me who have been failed by that system as well.

Sincerely,

Christopher Walker

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