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Beggars can't be choosers -- unless they're in New York City.
Homeless and unemployed, Kenneth Wecker, 62, moved back from Florida to his native city to take advantage of New York's social services -- but he refuses to live in any of the apartments the city has offered him.
"They want me to live in Harlem or East New York," griped the disabled retiree, who grew up in Brooklyn and suffers from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. "I'm not living there."
The former accountant was first told in 2007 that he was eligible for a taxpayer-funded monthly rent subsidy of $899 from the city through its Advantage New York program, started by the Department of Homeless Services. It's the most generous municipal rental-assistance program in the nation, DHS said.
When Wecker complained that wouldn't be enough once he found an apartment, the city said it would go as high as $1,070 a month for the rental of his choice. But he insists he needs over $1,200 a month to get the apartment he wants -- a one- or two-bedroom in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, preferably with an elevator since he has trouble walking up stairs.
He also collects $1,226 a month in federal Social Security disability payments and a small monthly allotment of food stamps that he says isn't enough to feed himself properly.
Wecker is part of a wave of benefit seekers who have arrived in the city since the Great Recession hit, social experts say. As middle-class residents flee because of high taxes, the poor and disabled look to New York to access some of the best taxpayer-funded social services in the nation.
The state and city have long been what some economists call a "welfare magnet." In particular, New York City offers better housing and Medicaid options than much of the rest of the country.
"That will draw people, and there has been a pattern in the past in the US of migrating for higher benefits," said Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
"Welfare is expensive everywhere, but it's even more expensive in New York, and the cherry on top is, yeah, you get some people coming in to benefit from how generous the state is in a few particular areas."
It's impossible to quantify how many city programs are accessed by out-of-staters like Wecker, because New York doesn't track that data. And of the dozens of programs offered in New York, none makes local residency a requirement for getting benefits.
But increases in applications for social services suggest a surge in welfare immigration. The Advantage NY program assisting Wecker, for instance, is providing city-funded leases to about 131 households a week -- a 79 percent increase over the previous year.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/recession_influx_takes_advantage_B6FOZmNkTNo87CFaFuXZfO
Homeless and unemployed, Kenneth Wecker, 62, moved back from Florida to his native city to take advantage of New York's social services -- but he refuses to live in any of the apartments the city has offered him.
"They want me to live in Harlem or East New York," griped the disabled retiree, who grew up in Brooklyn and suffers from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. "I'm not living there."
The former accountant was first told in 2007 that he was eligible for a taxpayer-funded monthly rent subsidy of $899 from the city through its Advantage New York program, started by the Department of Homeless Services. It's the most generous municipal rental-assistance program in the nation, DHS said.
When Wecker complained that wouldn't be enough once he found an apartment, the city said it would go as high as $1,070 a month for the rental of his choice. But he insists he needs over $1,200 a month to get the apartment he wants -- a one- or two-bedroom in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, preferably with an elevator since he has trouble walking up stairs.
He also collects $1,226 a month in federal Social Security disability payments and a small monthly allotment of food stamps that he says isn't enough to feed himself properly.
Wecker is part of a wave of benefit seekers who have arrived in the city since the Great Recession hit, social experts say. As middle-class residents flee because of high taxes, the poor and disabled look to New York to access some of the best taxpayer-funded social services in the nation.
The state and city have long been what some economists call a "welfare magnet." In particular, New York City offers better housing and Medicaid options than much of the rest of the country.
"That will draw people, and there has been a pattern in the past in the US of migrating for higher benefits," said Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
"Welfare is expensive everywhere, but it's even more expensive in New York, and the cherry on top is, yeah, you get some people coming in to benefit from how generous the state is in a few particular areas."
It's impossible to quantify how many city programs are accessed by out-of-staters like Wecker, because New York doesn't track that data. And of the dozens of programs offered in New York, none makes local residency a requirement for getting benefits.
But increases in applications for social services suggest a surge in welfare immigration. The Advantage NY program assisting Wecker, for instance, is providing city-funded leases to about 131 households a week -- a 79 percent increase over the previous year.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/recession_influx_takes_advantage_B6FOZmNkTNo87CFaFuXZfO