Rochester's homeless are calling on the county to make low income housing a priority in the city, rather than so called "affordable housing."
A protest is scheduled for Tuesday evening to address the lack of housing for the city's poor.
House of Mercy founder Sister Grace Miller says shelters like hers are dealing with overflow constantly.
"We're not going to refuse anyone so we continue to have large numbers. But it shouldn’t be just out responsibility it’s a county responsibility, it’s a city responsibility.”
Miller says they would love to see the county fund organizations rather than on a person by person basis.
"The shelters should be paid for housing homeless, rather than having each individual homeless paid by the county, because then the individual suffers if the homeless shelter will not accept them."
She also cites gentrification as a problem.
"The new units coming in downtown are $600, $800, $1000, $2000 and no poor person can pay that kind of rent. It’s really gentrification that is pushing the poor out of the city."
The demonstration will be held at 5:15pm outside of the Monroe County building on Main Street in Rochester.
The spokesperson for the county responded to the protest with a statement:
"With all due respect, today’s protest is a waste of time. Monroe County has no connection to the provision of low income housing in our community, and the ringleaders of this protest are either confused about that fact or they are intentionally misleading the public. If these folks were serious, they would march to the offices of any number of state or federal representatives in our region, who do indeed have the authority to impact low income housing policy. In the meantime, Monroe County can and will continue to help those in need through our existing state-approved Homelessness Plan. Under the plan, the County works with nearly 20 different temporary housing facilities, supporting over 100,000 individual bed nights, at a cost of nearly $5 million every year to protect the homeless."
