Showing Posts by Date: 07/2013
07.31.2013
Tax Credit Advisor ran a piece on Creston Avenue Residence, a supportive housing residence in development in the Bronx, in its August 2013 issue. The article includes a quote from Network Executive Director Ted Houghton. The magazine has kindly allowed us to post the story here. You'll find the first few paragraphs below. Follow this link to download a PDF of the article. See here to subscribe to Tax Credit Advisor.
Creston Avenue Residence, a new low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) development under construction in the Fordham section of the Bronx, is writing a new chapter in the history of supportive housing.
The infill development is the first permanent supportive housing project funded under a New York initiative designed to reduce the state’s annual expenditures for Medicaid while improving the lives of high-cost and high-need Medicaid recipients. Medicaid is the federal-state program that pays for health care costs for extremely low-income households. The federal government and state government usually share the costs 50/50. In New York, however, the state and localities, such as New York City, split the state’s share.
Continue Reading …07.26.2013
After nearly a decade of litigation, New York State announced on July 23 that it has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice to provide the opportunity for 4,000 mentally ill people living in adult homes to move into OMH-funded scattered-site Supported Housing or other housing that is the most integrated setting appropriate to the individual.
Under a consent decree, the state will offer assessments to at least 2,500 residents of 23 large adult homes in New York City. This process will determine whether residents are capable of moving into supported housing or other housing that's most appropriate for that individual. As part of the decision, the state agreed to create and subsidize at least 2,000 new scattered-site Supported Housing units to meet the expected increase in demand.
Health Homes or Managed Long Term Care (MLTC) plans will perform comprehensive assessments of the residents' physical and behavioral health needs. They'll also work with individuals to arrange for needed services and recommend the appropriate housing options.
Continue Reading … | New York State07.26.2013
The Network joined dozens of housing and homelessness nonprofits on July 24 for a robust advocacy day in Washington, D.C. The event, formed as part of the National Alliance to End Homelessness' (NAEH) annual conference, was our largest federal advocacy day to date. The Network led a diverse delegation of providers, fellow advocates and consumers in meetings with all 29 of New York's congressional delegation. We held direct meetings with a record number of members of Congress, including New York Reps. Engel, Jefferies, Owens, Rangel, Tonko and Velazquez.
The day was made extra special with the presence of dozens of NYC Continuum of Care members who made a day trip by bus to join in the efforts. This marked the very first NYC CoC sponsored lobby day, made possible by the donations and volunteer efforts of Ali Forney Center, VIP Community Services, Good Shepherd Services, Center for Urban Community Services, VOCAL-NY, Project Renewal and Housing Works. The Network wants to especially thank CoC Steering Committee member Jim Mutton for being bus captain. The Westchester County CoC also drove a carload of advocates for meetings with the three members of Congress who represent that county.
Continue Reading … | Federal07.18.2013
NYS Homes & Community Renewal (HCR) has released details on its 2013 Unified Funding Round Request for Proposals (RFP) for its 2013 capital and credit programs.
The RFP, expected to come online by August 16, will offer $43 in capital funding and $29 million in tax credits to develop affordable and supportive housing.
This year's funding round will have two application deadlines. The first deadline is for early round projects, which meet criteria that will be detailed in the RFP. The second deadline will be for all other capital projects. The application for early round projects must be completed and submitted by 5:00pm on October 10, 2013. All other Unified Funding Round capital applications must be completed and submitted by 5:00pm on December 5, 2013.
Continue Reading … | Funding07.12.2013
Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order last year to rein in excessive compensation for New York State-funded entities. This order, known as Executive Order 38, became effective last month. The State has now released guidelines and forms for complying with the order, which you can find here.
Compensation paid to executives and reimbursed by State agencies cannot exceed $199,000 per year for organizations covered by Executive Order 38. Reimbursed administrative overhead costs are limited to 25% of State funding; this number decreases to 15% by 2015.
If you believe your agency must comply with these new guidelines, we encourage you to visit the Executive Order 38 website. You can find additional guidance from this document from the Human Services Council and this brief from the Lawyers Alliance for New York.
| New York State07.11.2013
The NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH) released its Regional Centers of Excellence Plan on July 10. The plan, available here, will consolidate New York's 24 State-run psychiatric hospitals and establish 15 Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE) across New York over the next three years.
RCEs will serve as networks for inpatient and community-based services. Each RCE will have a specialized inpatient hospital program located at its center along with geographically dispersed community service "hubs" to oversee state-operated, community-based services throughout the region.
State-run psychiatric facilities will close in a number of regions: St. Lawrence, Binghamton, Elmira, Rochester, Mid Hudson, Sagamore, Manhattan and Western NY Children's PCs. St. Lawrence, Binghamton, Elmira and Rochester will continue to provide outpatient services in the community as they do now.
For a list of all 15 RCEs that OMH will operate after the three-year transition process, see page five of this document.
Continue Reading … | New York State07.11.2013
The U.S. House and Senate have passed their respective appropriations bills for the federal Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) subcommittee.
The Senate's bill is by far the stronger of the two. The Senate allocated $10 billion more to the THUD budget, including $2.26 billion for McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants. This amount represents a $228 million increase over last year's budget. The House, Senate and Executive budgets all provide increases to this vital program, a testament to its broad, bi-partisan support.
The Senate also funds the HOME program at $1 billion -- more than either the House or Executive budgets but far short of the 2010 funding level of $1.8 billion, before Congress cut the program by 40%. HOME has been a vital capital funding source for supportive housing. The Senate also proposes higher funding levels for HOPWA, Tenant-Based Section 8 and Project-Based Section 8. The House and Senate propose equal appropriations for Section 811 for persons with disabilities, Section 202 for the elderly and VA Supportive Housing (VASH).
Continue Reading … | Federal07.09.2013
The Housing First! coalition has released a new $8 billion plan to preserve and expand affordable housing in New York City over the next eight years. The plan, which you can read here, calls on New York's next mayor to build 60,000 new affordable housing units -- including 10,000 supportive housing and 6,000 senior housing units -- and preserve 90,000 at-risk affordable housing units.
First formed in 2001, Housing First! is coalition of 40 diverse coordinating committee members seeking policy innovation and capital investment to address New York City's affordable housing crisis. The new plan, titled Building Stronger, has more than 100 organizational endorsements to date. Along with calling for increased affordable housing production and preservation, Building Stronger outlines proposals to strengthen the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA), support affordable home ownership and address the housing needs of low-income families.
Continue Reading … | New York City07.05.2013
The NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is inviting housing developers to submit qualifications for the design and construction of new supportive housing projects. The agency released a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) on July 3, following an announcement made by HPD Commissioner Mathew Wambua at the Network's June conference that an RFQ was on the horizon.
For more information and to read the RFQ, see here.
Developers selected through this RFQ will be invited to submit proposals for the construction of supportive housing on City-owned sites controlled by HPD, the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC). The resulting projects will serve the City's goal of doubling supportive housing development beginning in the 2013 fiscal year.
Continue Reading … | Funding07.02.2013
Governor Cuomo released his annual End of Session report, titled New York Rising, last month. The document offers a rundown of the policies supported by the Cuomo administration and includes an extended passage on the social and fiscal benefits of supportive housing.
"[Supportive housing] projects do a variety of important things," the report reads, "ranging from providing safe housing for domestic violence victims, to transitioning formerly homeless veterans with substance abuse issues to independent housing, to saving localities money by avoiding emergency housing placements in hotels and motels and other, more expensive institutional settings and reducing incidences of hospitalization and the associated costs."
New York Rising also highlights the Governor's Medicaid Redesign Team, which has invested $161 million in supportive housing in just two years. The report concludes that "supportive housing units transform lives, strengthen neighborhoods and communities and conserve public dollars."
You can read the full report here.
| New York State, Press