No shelter from the facts

Mayor de Blasio’s promised land for his city’s more than 60,000 struggling homeless is a network of shelters he intends to open in every community — for those in need to rely on for safe and sound sleep, and for everyone else to embrace as temporary homes for neighbors in need.

In rolling out plans for 90 new shelters more than a year ago, he pledged “more communication, better notification, more accountability, more community input” in placing the facilities — “an honest conversation with communities.” Those were the words. These are the deeds: The Department of Homeless Services has since stopped divulging arrests in its shelters, even those notorious among residents and neighbors for crime and disorder. The city has done this even though the state requires full reporting of arrests involving drugs, violence or threats to the surrounding community.

Internal reports obtained by the Daily News showed 752 such arrests at 21 of the biggest adult shelters.

Instead, DHS now reports ODs, fires, sex assaults, and fights that either result in a visible injury and involve a weapon. If even that.

Under the crazy new math, cops were called to those 21 shelters alone 15,000 times last year — yet the city’s full system, hundreds of shelters and hotels, experienced just 1,585 critical incidents.

The city says it stopped sharing arrest numbers in or near specific shelters for fear of “a heightened level of scrutiny and stigma” for shelter residents.

Deceptions about shelters’ real dangers, couched as patronizing concern, make no homeless person safer. People, homeless and otherwise, deserve the truth.

First and foremost, that most shelter residents are not criminals but those in need of protection from criminals, including people with serious mental illness and also people on parole, for whom one slip-up into drugs or a fight could land them back behind bars.

As for neighbors, they’re trying to have that honest conversation de Blasio sought about what shelters could mean for their community. It’s their mayor who’s bobbing and weaving.