Homeless Scam in NYC

[chanel]

Just in time for the holidays, state authorities are going for the jug-ular -- seeking to banish forever the panhandling pests who clog Manhattan's busiest corners with folding tables and plastic water bottles. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed suit yesterday, charging the United Homeless Organization is a scam run by con artists who pocket most of the change they collect -- hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

UHO founder Stephen Riley and director Myra Walker take a big cut of the money to fund personal shopping sprees at the GameStop, Home Shopping Network, Bed Bath & Beyond and P.C. Richard, as well as their monthly cable bills, legal papers charge.

Riley, a beefy 60-year-old, shamelessly used the donated dollars -- which are supposed to be used to "feed the homeless" -- to pay his Weight Watchers bills.

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, seeks a temporary injunction to shut down the UHO, then permanently disband it and keep Riley and Walker from ever taking part in charitable causes.

Riley, who founded the UHO in 1985 and got tax-exempt status for it eight years later, charges a flat-rate $15 to $25 to rent a table and empty water jug for a four-hour shift.

"In exchange for paying a fee to Riley, UHO workers received tables and UHO-branded materials, including a tablecloth, apron and plastic jug, and the right to claim membership in UHO," the suit charged. After deducting the "rent," the table worker keeps all the donations -- up to $80 a shift during peak season.

And with 50 tables around Manhattan -- each operating for two to three shifts seven days a week -- Riley and Walker could have collected well over $100,000 in fees a year, officials estimate. Undercover investigators recorded table workers saying the donated change would help fund soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters and detox centers, the suit said.

When pressed, Borders, who was collecting from commuters at Penn Station, admitted, "We don't own any shelters or soup kitchens. The money provides us with everyday money."

Read more: Homeless beggar jars a sham: AG - NYPOST.com

 

[noose4]

They and their water jugs are all over the place, it's been going on for a few years and they get exposed every once in a while but they are set up in tourist areas hitting up tourists that do not know about the scam.

 

[Xenophon]

They will never stop all of these, they happen every year.

 

[WillowTree]

I figure when I pay my income tax I'm giving to charity.

 

[waltky]

Good on `em...

New York City to Add Homeless Shelters
February 28, 2017 — New York City would open about 90 new homeless shelters in five years under a plan unveiled Tuesday, but would wind down the practice of putting up some homeless people in hotels and private apartments. The $300 million plan is Mayor Bill de Blasio's latest effort to deal with a stubborn surge in homelessness in the last decade.

With roughly 60,000 homeless people now spending their nights in shelters and thousands more on the streets, city officials say increasing shelters will provide more services, better conditions and potentially higher prospects of moving on than the hotel rooms and apartments that now make up part of the shelter system. Yet even if everything in the plan comes to pass, the homeless shelter population would drop only by a projected 2,500 people by 2021. "Is it everything we want it to be? No. It's an honest goal," said the Democratic mayor, who emphasized that his plan would aim to keep people as close as possible to the neighborhoods they called home.

Locations not known

It's not immediately clear where the city would put 90 new shelters, while expanding 30 existing ones. New shelters, and plans for them, have encountered neighborhood resistance in the past. There are currently nearly 300. The plan would add $300 million to the city's $89.6 billion, 10-year capital budget, officials said. But since the city would save money on hotels and apartments while spending money on new shelters, budget director Dean Fuleihan said the plan would mainly reallocate, not necessarily add to, the annual operating budget for homelessness services, which stands at $1.3 billion this year. De Blasio has proposed to raise it to $2.3 billion next year. The overall city operating budget is over $84 billion this year.

People walk by a homeless man panhandling on a New York sidewalk​

The city would end its use of hotel rooms to shelter the homeless by 2023 and its similar use of private apartments, some of which have been slammed for poor conditions, by 2021. The apartment deadline was pushed back from 2018 after officials concluded that ending the use of them would only increase the pricey use of hotels. The shelter population has jumped by about 70 percent in a decade in New York City, which is required by decades-old legal agreements to provide shelter to everyone seeking it.

Crisis spots for homelessness

 

[AsianTrumpSupporter]

I visited a friend in NYC back in 2000, and she told me the same thing. She said not to donate to the endless homeless kids, because they're not even homeless and only prey on tourists.