Blas’ Empty Homeless ‘Vision’

Mayor de Blasio called it a “blood-andguts war strategy” to finally get a handle on the city’s rising homelessness — but what he announced Tuesday looks more like a wish list than a plan. And even he admits his “vision” won’t be much help.

The “strategy” was conspicuously missing answers to some critical questions — like precisely where to site the 90 new homeless shelters he proposes building these next five years to replace most current shelters as well as cluster apartments and hotels. And just how he plans to pay for them. The answers, it seems, will come in dribs and drabs: On Wednesday, the city said the first four shelters will be opened in the Belmont section of The Bronx and in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights.

Nor did officials specify the source of the $300 million in new capital spending they say is needed for the 90 shelters.

Give de Blasio credit for this: He didn’t make wild promises about ending homelessness. Indeed, he admitted his plan “doesn’t take us to Nirvana.”

But the fact remains that, if it works as promised, it’ll reduce the record-high shelter population by only 2,500 people over five years — a decrease of just 4 percent. And the number of single adults is actually expected to rise.

This in a total shelter population that has surged by some 14 percent since he became mayor, in part thanks to eligibility rules significantly loosened and expanded by advocate-turned-city-homeless-czar Steve Banks. And that doesn’t include the increase in homeless living on the streets.

The mayor was right to admit he doesn’t “have a defined end in sight” on homelessness. Problem is, his plan — what we know of it, anyway — isn’t even much of a start.