In the war between Rudy Guliani and Bill De Blasio, the homeless are the losers.

In the NY Post, Rudy Guliani wrote about his term in office and his experience with NYC's homeless. Here's some of what he wrote: "If the (individual's) problems are more severe, then referrals can be made to alcohol and drug rehabilitation programs and for mental evaluation to determine if therapy and medication can be helpful. This will not work with everyone. In my experience, it worked more often than not, but not always at first. It’s always best if the police officer is accompanied by a social worker — as often was the case — to explain to a homeless person that coming in for an evaluation is better than walking all night because, if the person refuses to come, he will be followed and not allowed to sleep outside anywhere else." Now, he is right in many respects. It's not appropriate to say that "If a person wants to sleep on the sidewalk, let them." When then NYPD PO Nelson Velez and I (Tommy McInnis) worked the subways together, we were successful. Our work ethic was "at least one transport per day." That worked. Why? Well, we had something referred to as "Enforcement-Engagement." The MTA has rules and regs violations which are enforceable by the police. Minor violations, but still can result in an arrest. So having a team as described above worked. And, we had resources. Not only city shelters, but private service providers: Detox facilities, Drop-In centers for frail-elderly or the mentally ill, or both, private shelters, all which were doing great work. They weren't understaffed and over worked. After Rudy left office in 2002, our new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, would end up cutting the budget to the homeless service providers. Many of the small private sector facilities had to shut down. That left just the City Shelters, which are understaffed and overworked. Many homeless people don't want to go into them for any long period of time. And, after my own experiences with the NYC public shelter system, I understand why. So, now it's Mayor Bill de Blasio's turn. I don't think he's handling this very well, not at all. He has inherited a situation made bad by his predecessor. I believe he could learn a lot from NYC's last two mayors. One knew what to do, the other didn't care enough to continue the work. Now I know that Bill de Blasio recently countered Rudy's statements by claiming that he "sent the homeless out of town..." He's correct in that fact that some homeless people were sent out of the city. But those who were sent had places to go to live once they arrived there. And, truth be told, there weren't all that many. So, those who stayed were helped right here. So, Bill (may I call you Bill?) have a look at the past, and learn from it. It wasn't all bad and it certainly wasn't all good, but there are some things done then that you can do today. This "dick measuring" between you both has to stop. I know the increase isn't on your administration, and I also know it wasn't because of Rudy (I worked outreach then). This is your admin's problem to work with now, and I hope you do it right. More about Tommy McInnis: Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Tommy-McInnis/e/B003K4A8L4/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_2 IMDb http://www.imdb.me/tommymcinnis