November 20, 2007 (LPAC)--New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an unannounced but active Presidential candidate, is pressing ahead with savage policies against that city's most vulnerable citizens.

In the midst of a national housing crisis, the number of homeless families in New York City shelters is now at a record 9,500. Yet on October 12, the Bloomberg Administration announced that those who are awaiting "certification" that they are officially homeless would no longer be admitted to stay in a shelter for one night on an emergency basis.

The result has been desperate families trying to stay warm on the street, including pregnant women, and children trying to do their homework over a heat grate, covered with blankets and towels.

The City Council's General Welfare Committee, chaired by Brooklyn Democrat William De Blasio, held a hearing on the homeless policy in response to the Bloomberg announcement. Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Robert Hess said that those being turned away from shelters are not really homeless, because they have living relatives or others who "could" put them up. The city determines this by an large-scale inquisition program: Investigators check family circumstances and the status of relatives, not to ascertain how best to help the homeless, but to try to disqualify them from help.

This accords with Bloomberg's promise in 2004, that he would reduce the number of homeless people by two-thirds. Clearly, if many of them are declared not-homeless, or die, their number will have been reduced.

The Washington Post reported today that in 2006, 51.8% of all families that were deemed ineligible and were barred from entering shelters, were subsequently found eligible, on appeal. But in the meanwhile, the city had saved money; and many did not appeal. As Bloomberg assured the globalist financiers' Manhattan Institute on November 1, 2007, he appreciates and is carrying out their welfare and policing policies, as did his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani.

Today the General Welfare Committee held a hearing on the hunger crisis. A spokesman for Councilman De Blasio told EIR that New York has lost 12 million pounds of food for the poor since 2004 as a result of reduced Federal aid. Yet despite increasing hunger as Winter approaches, Mayor Bloomberg is adamant he will continue to require fingerprinting for recipients of Federal food stamps. This Kafkaesque practice ends up blocking food aid to many needy people, but the Council was told that it is needed to combat "food fraud."

De Blasio's spokesman said that 1.1 million people get food stamps in new York City, and there have been 31 documented cases of "food fraud."