Bloomberg: New York helps the homeless

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NEW YORK, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- New York City has far fewer of its residents living on the street than other major U.S. cities, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday.

Bloomberg said that suggests the city is "more compassionate," the New York Post reported. He said on his weekly radio program on WOR-AM about 1-in-2,500 New Yorkers is without shelter, compared to 1-in-250 in Los Angeles, 1-in-290 in San Francisco, 1-in-300 in Seattle and 1-in-800 in Miami.

"So we're three to 10 times more compassionate as the other cities, if you use that as a measure of compassionate and assuming everybody's measurements are the same," Bloomberg said.

On Tuesday, the city housed 48,834 people in shelters Tuesday, the Post said, a record for New York. The city says 3,262 people were on the streets in 2012, down from a high of 4,395 in 2006 and up from 2,648 in 2011.