NEW YORK, NY November 16, 2004 —Since the 1970s, homeless families have been introduced to the city shelter system through a bleak and infamous intake center in the Bronx. It's called the Emergency Assistance Unit, or EAU. And it's been the subject of lawsuits because families had to sleep on floors and chairs, often for days at a time. Now, the EAU is no more. The city announced today it's spending 30 million dollars to rebuild the intake center. A temporary office will open Thursday to take families until the new EAU opens in 2008.

We'll have the details on whether this new center will solve some of the EAU's longstanding problems in a moment...but first, a trip down memory lane. Just how bad was the EAU? WNYC's Beth Fertig visited the site in 1995, where she met Simone Beezer, who was there with her 2 year old daughter and another homeless woman and her family.