A certain group of homeless families tended to disappear from shelters and never return. These were the ones who had been granted vouchers under a federal affordable housing program called Section 8. This shouldn’t have been too surprising. If you provide homeless families with affordable housing, not too many of them will opt for the streets or squalid shelters. Yet that conclusion might have been embarrassing to then-mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration. With much fanfare, the city government had moved to wean families from Section 8.
