Personally, I've come to seriously think that ALL persons directly involved in policies and procedures for these things ought to be required to live at the shelters under the exact same circumstances for a real length of time, before being able to inflict their ideas on others. And risk having to return to the circumstances, if their results for others are too faulty.

Talk about responsibility and accountability. But not just for those already at the bottom. "Too comfortable"? Geez...

It is time for civil rights for people of all skin color.  I agree we allow OUR government to remove our right by us Doing nothing. It is time to get a non-violent movement telling Mr. Obama, WHAT US- THE POOR NEED. 

WE NEED BETTER PAYING JOBS.  So we can afford rents. we need the prices of rents to go down. We need every person on SSI and SSDI paid enough to cover the rent. Current 16 states do not have SSI rates paying the cost of rent.

Studies have found around 70% of Americans are paid less then the cost of their rents.  Or at least NOT a Livable wage.

Of course shelters turning away families, or allowing less time to stay will make life harder for the homeless. The second largest City in Maine, Bangor - closed their only family shelter 3 years ago or so. Nothing has replaced it.

We need to address the mindset which says its ok to pay the poor less than it cost to live.

Even just 10% of Us poor must act, and act now.   Life could be better. The time to end poverty is NOW. If not Now-then when? We can give our child a nicer tomorrow.  

The three horses are name from left to right "End," the middle is "Poverty", and the one furthest away is called "Today."  They need the voices of us in the front row of poverty to trample the false ideas of poverty and save taxpayers funds while doing it.

Mr. Obama cannot end poverty without our voices. He see's only band aids not solutions. 

Is it just me or does $100 a day for a shelter seem crazy high?  I want to be in the shelter biz.  I know it is expensive in NYC, but I've seen many a motel room for $59, with a continental breakfast. And for another $40 a night  multiplied by 7 nights I could get a set of clothes from Goodwill for a family of five.

I think that it's more than the concern of paying a hundred-dollars a day, i think that this is trying to address the progression and prioritizing that one that is in a shelter has come to address.

I'm guessing that once one has come to accept the help of the shelter, then we as individuals tryin to over-come must strive to come out of that position of being shelter residents or receiving assitance to aid in the progression to over-come a current homeless state.

There is a wonderful shelter I stayed at in Boston for two years and they had tv coverage as a great example - The Women's Inn - with the other side for men.  They referred families in need to other good shelters.  They sent me to business school; got me paid hotel training; sent me to work in a paid job at a warehouse for six months and helped me get a job a Sears.  A doctor came in there every week, and since I had a disorder, after seeing her regularly, she had me on disability within six months later at the end of my stay there.  My idea is that if every American would contribute $1.00 per month to an established, trusted non-profit group such as this place - foreclosed buildings/homes could be purchased and government funded.  Day care; job training and placement and housing help should be provided - not just a place with four walls and a roof.

I've got to agree with SlumJack, it's way past time to start requiring that policy makers MUST live for a time (and I'd personally like it to be a minimum of 6 months without any resources or assistance beyond that available to someone on the referenced assistance program or programs) on the assistance programs for which they're making policy decisions.  I'm convinced that if they - even part of them - did so, we'd start seeing more reasonable or at least more realistic decisions about what poverty is and how to help those who've had the misfortune to land in it.

While admittedly I'm on the other coast in Seattle, $100/night sounds closer to luxury hotel costs (or at least a rather nice hotel) for what, in a shelter, is generally not only NOT luxury but often some really nasty conditions.  I've seen everything from decent but quite crowded shelters to something that I think was probably looking up at roach motels.

But to go back to the policy wonks, there's NO WAY that someone is going to get "back on their feet" (meaning out of the shelter and into a normal home like an apartment) in six months while paying for shelter space - UNLESS any and ALL "rent" paid toward the shelter is held in trust and released to the tenant at the end of their stay to be used for deposits.  I can't imagine that's what they're doing in NYC.

Or are they talking about the city will be paying the contracting agencies $100/per day?  If so, this is an entirely different story.  $100/per day is more reasonable that what some places pay.  The last remaining home for the mentally ill - sort of a halfway house sort of a thing - closed about a year ago here in Seattle because they were being paid $38 per day per person for not just providing shelter but providing food and enough supervision to make sure people were taking care of their basic hygiene and doing things like taking their medications.  You can't even board a pet for $38/day.

Still, no matter who is paying whom the $100/day, unless those in the shelters are having pretty much all their needs met AND being led through financial counseling along it's almost certain to take the majority quite a bit longer than 6 months to get back into regular (as in not a shelter, not subsidized) housing.  Why?  Too many who are homeless or in danger of homelessness are so because wages, disability payments, etc. don't pay nearly enough to pay current rents and housing assistance programs have what are typically wait lists of YEARS, if they're taking applications for the wait list at all.  When someone is looking at HAVING to pay something akin to 50% or so of their income for an apartment, it's going to take quite a while - unless literally not paying many if any expenses - to come up with the expenses necessary for moving into a new place, and particularly when all of one's income literally is spoken for as an active part of one's budget. 

Which all leads back to why the policy wonks need to live in the hell they've created for the poor - to see what a dire and desperate level of poverty one must be in before even eligible for help and how absolutely (and inappropriately) judgmental, ineffective and in many way violating of our human rights. 

BTW, shelters have a long standing history of turning away people.  Particularly, they turn away anyone who's different, in need of more help, who's disabled, etc. - effectively it's cherry picking and it's often in violation of civil rights, the ADA and sometimes other stuff too - but no one really seems to care since the homeless are, are far as general society cares, about as low as it gets no matter who you are, where you are or why you're homeless.