Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has set out to move 700 homeless people off the street into public housing. He made the pledge this past spring and wants to see the job get done within a year. The good news is that the Mayor’s latest call for budget cuts to fill a $450 million spending hole won’t affect the program. That’s because the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) is providing most of the housing and doing background checks, and isn’t subject to the proposed cuts. We contacted the city’s homeless services director, Dainette Mintz, to find out how many homeless people have gotten housing so far. She told us that through the help of transitional housing and behavioral health programs for the homeless, the city has already provided public housing for 100 homeless households and expects to place another 100 by the end of this month. We also contacted PHA spokesperson Kirk Dorn to find out how long it would take a homeless person, not included in the Mayor’s plan, to get public housing. He told us there are 50,000 people on the waiting list and that it typically takes five years to get off it. For senior citizens and the disabled, the wait is shorter but can take more than five years for families. We hit the streets to find out what homeless people think about the Mayor’s initiative, and if they’ve tried to get into public housing on their own. Check out the video below.

What do you think of Nutter’s plan to get the homeless into public housing? Does it make sense? Should the Mayor be doing something else? What other strategies could our city adopt?