Showing Posts by Date: 06/2013
06.24.2013
Great news: The NYC Council has approved a budget that restores $5.1 million in proposed cuts to HIV/AIDS supportive housing contracts!
The cuts, proposed in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2013-2014 fiscal year budget for the fifth year running, would have impacted tenants in 4,500 supportive housing units funded by the NYC Human Resources Administration HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HRA HASA). Because the program receives a 29% match from New York State, the total budget cut to HASA supportive housing contracts would have been $7.2 million. The cuts would have also resulted in more than 200 social workers being laid off. Thanks to this restoration, thousands of vulnerable tenants will get to keep their case workers.
The final budget used the Council's legislative initiative funding to restore both HASA supportive housing contracted case management cuts ($2.718 million) and HASA supportive housing contract cuts ($2.368 million). These restorations were made possible thanks to the leadership and unwavering support of Council Speaker Christine Quinn and General Welfare Chair Annabel Palma. The Network also wishes to thank the many Council members who fought hard to restore this funding, especially the members of the General Welfare Committee.
Continue Reading …06.10.2013
Left: Taz Tagore, cofounder of the Reciprocity Foundation. Middle: The crowd at the morning session of the 13th Annual New York State Supportive Housing Conference. Right: Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick pauses during his keynote address to take a photo of the audience. For more photos from the event, visit our Facebook page.
On June 6, some 1,200 of our friends and colleagues gathered for the 13th Annual New York State Supportive Housing Conference, the largest event in the Network's history. This full-day affair included a record 30 workshops, a showstopping keynote address, a major government announcement and a cocktail reception featuring numerous elected officials.
The conference began with the signature one-two punch of Network Board Chair Bill Traylor and Network Executive Director Ted Houghton. Before a crowd of supportive housing's finest, both men spoke of the sea changes that lie ahead for our community. Mr. Houghton reminded attendees of another game-changing era, 30 years ago, when supportive housing first emerged.
"Those weren't easy times," he said. "Blocks and blocks of our cities were nothing more than vacant lots. We had, for the first time in living memory, people with mental illness living on the streets. And what did we do? We created this model, supportive housing, that did more to improve the quality of life of people with mental illness and other barriers to independence than anything in the history of the world. Today, we find ourselves in another era of immense opportunity."
Continue Reading … | Network Events06.05.2013
Barrier Free Living celebrated the groundbreaking of its first supportive housing residence on June 4. Barrier Free Living Apartments, located in the South Bronx, will soon offer 120 units of supportive housing for domestic violence survivors, female veterans and disabled women in a nursing home diversion program. The project will consist of two buildings: a 51-unit residence on East 138th Street and a 70-unit residence on East 139th Street. The first building will house families and the second individuals.
Last month's groundbreaking for this $42 million project included a slate of guest speakers. Among them were NYC Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo, Jessica Katz of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Joan Tally of the NYC Housing Development Corporation (HDC), Brett Hebner of the NYS Homeless Housing and Assistance Corporation (HHAC), Benjamin Warnke of Alembic Community Development, Bill Traylor of Richman Housing Resources and representatives from the office of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.
Barrier Free Living Apartments is being developed under Mayor Bloomberg's New Housing Marketplace Plan (NHMP).
Continue Reading … | Member News, Groundbreakings