New York City Five Boroughs - Homelessness | Documentary
Produced by Colectivo Piloto for The New York City Five Boroughs Digital Archive. Photo by Pablo Herrera. NYC homeless population captured between 2013 and 2020. The debate around homelessness always circles around the consequences, mostly focused on city shelters and mental illness, but it rarely goes further in analyzing the root causes. Homelessness is a structural problem in a developed country reporting exceeding large disparities between the rich and the poor with high levels of income inequality. Homelessness is largely avoidable, or at least could be less painful, by guaranteeing affordable housing, education and universal health care. We can, and must, address the most immediate consequences and have a debate about city shelters and mental illness, but we can also go further by pressuring our political leaders to pass legislation to address the root causes of homelessness and disparities in the US.