Mayor de Blasio admitted for the first time Monday that the city’s growing homeless population includes at least 83 municipal employees — while pledging to move “aggressively” to find them permanent housing.
Responding to a Post report that more than 300 city employees live in shelters or on the streets, de Blasio through a spokeswoman said he’d “aggressively work with the employees to help them find a path to housing permanency.”
Mayoral spokeswoman Ishanee Parikh said records show only 83 shelter residents have self-identified as city employees. Municipal unions leaders told The Post the actual number is more than 300, but many don’t report their employment status out of shame.
“There’s a social taboo that they believe comes with being homeless,” said Joseph Puleo, president of Local 983 of District Council 37, the city’s largest blue-collar municipal-workers union.
The mayor blamed the growing homeless situation on the economy.
“People have been displaced from their homes by the high cost of housing, even if they’re working,” he said at City Hall.