Shadow City

Fault Lines examines the historic crisis of family homelessness in New York City and investigates the forces displacing so many from their homes

New York City is in the midst of a homelessness crisis unprecedented in any American city. In just a decade, the number of people living in the city’s homeless shelters has almost doubled. As of March 2015, nearly 60,000 people sleep in the shelters every night. Thousands more live doubled up in overcrowded apartments or on the streets. Seventy percent of the homeless are families with children.

The city’s Department of Homeless Services now spends nearly one billion dollars per year to operate homeless shelters, sometimes paying as much as $2,700 per month to shelter a family.

Fault Lines examines the politics of homelessness in New York City and asks whether the city’s housing policies have exacerbated the crisis—driving low-income families out of affordable housing and into the shelter system.