Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on today's show is

Stephen I. He's a City Journal contributing editor and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Stephen studies a wide range of issues, including public finance, mental health, and homelessness,

which is going to be the subject of today's show. New York has the largest homeless population

of any city in the country, and in a feature for our New York City-reborn special issue, Stephen

details the ways that Mayor de Blasio's reforms have really not improved the homeless situation, to put it mildly. And he suggests some

policies for mayoral candidates who are serious about improving the situation. So, Stephen,

thanks very much for joining it. Thanks for having me, Brian. Mayor de Blasio, as you note in this

essay, which is called New York's Homelessness Crucible, Mayor de Blasio, as you note in this essay, which is called New York's Homelessness Crucible,

Mayor de Blasio ran for office citing homelessness as one of the principal issues that was facing the city,

but by most objective measures, his policies haven't really worked.

You know, how do you explain this? Do administrative reasons account for the failure,

or is there something deeper about his entire approach that might address the problem?

Well, I think that homelessness has probably harmed Mayor de Blasio's reputation more than any

other issue, I would say, across his two terms.

He's never been a particularly popular mayor, even on the left.

And homelessness has a major driver of that unpopularity.

There's just a way in which the issue seems to underscore the problem of government and competence.

Homelessness just seems like a problem that above all the things that we may put on city governments left,

caring for the homeless should be something that they should know how to do, and they don't.

So even in this mayoral's race this year, when many of the candidates are pretty similar

...