NEW YORK - They've slept on office floors, in jails and on school buses that take them to and from shelters at 3 a.m. But now homeless people in New York City might get a new place to spend the night - on cruise ships.

City officials, faced with a rapidly expanding number of homeless and a court order that requires New York to provide temporary shelter for any person who needs it, have come up with the novel plan to use old cruise ships as one of several solutions to a chronic housing shortage.

Homeless Services Commissioner Linda Gibbs flew to the Bahamas yesterday with other top city officials on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's private jet to inspect several such ships.

The expedition is "just a fact-finding mission, extremely preliminary," said Jim Anderson, Gibbs' spokesman. "The trip is to determine if the ships would be safe and applicable to shelter homeless clients."

New York has more than 36,000 homeless people, the highest number in years, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. And although Bloomberg has dismissed the notion that the problem is getting worse, New York has been hard-pressed to find suitable housing for this growing population.

More than 16,000 are under the age of 18, and an additional 12,000 are mothers, according to agency figures. The city will conduct a census of the homeless this winter in an effort to arrive at a more accurate number.

Advocates for the homeless say the idea is outlandish and unnecessary. They want the mayor to promote cheap, permanent housing.

"I thought I'd heard it all when it comes to New York dealing with the homeless, but I guess I haven't," said Patrick Markee, a senior policy analyst with the Coalition for the Homeless. "I think most New Yorkers will hear this latest idea and say to themselves, 'There's got to be a better way than using cruise ships,' and, of course, there is."

He said New York is paying "a very stiff price" for its nearly 40 percent cutback in temporary housing assistance programs mandated by the previous administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Bloomberg has pledged to restore much of that funding, including renovation of city-funded apartments and federal Section 8 housing assistance programs, Markee said, "but right now we have an exploding homeless population and we need real programs to help them."

Josh Getlin writes for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.