They like all other homeless shelter providers do not discriminate against race, age, religion, color, origin, or any other determination.

Since then, the city has cut that population by more than 19 percent, to about 6,900, by pushing shelter providers to move the homeless out more quickly.

Until last week, advocates for the homeless and many private, nonprofit shelter providers believed any change would be delayed until after the cold season, and its peak in shelter applicants.

This was accomplished by holding shelter providers more closely accountable for managing the cases of those needing housing.

The report was based on survey responses from 93 state officials, education administrators and shelter providers in 45 states.

Elsewhere across the country, shelter providers said they had also noticed an increase in the number of homeless teen-agers, but nothing like what is being seen in New York.

Most homeless parents - nearly all of them single mothers - already are in workfare assignments or job programs, officials and shelter providers agree.

"We need to create, if you will, a personal crisis in individuals' lives" that cannot be avoided by alternative programs, he said in a speech at a Rockefeller Foundation forum attended by many shelter providers last fall.

It includes representatives of nonprofit organizations and shelter providers and is expected to compile a list of recommendations by the fall.

The not-for-profit corps of shelter providers is a needed interim measure.