Network Newsfeed

Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative (ESSHI)

Oct.16.2018

In 2016, Governor Cuomo announced a commitment to fund 20,000 units of supportive housing over the next 15 years. To achieve this commitment, NYS began rolling out a brand new services and operating program called the Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative (ESSHI). The goal: to create 1,200 units a year across the state. ESSHI is intended to leverage various state and local capital resources. 

What Makes ESSHI Innovative?

1. Largest commitment to supportive housing in history – ESSHI is the largest commitment to supportive housing in history; it is over twice the size of NY/NY III.

 2. First long-term commitment to developing supportive housing outside New York City – Funding at up to $25,000 a unit with an annual escalator built in, ESSHI provides the first substantial and long-term services and operating funding source to communities outside NYC.  Historically, supportive housing providers outside NYC have relied on a mix of outside sources such as Shelter + Care, the NYS Supportive Housing Program (NYSSHP) and Section 8 to help fund rent and services.  ESSHI for the first time fully funds the supportive housing model in both urban and rural areas across the state.

3. First time the state Legislature adopted a five-year appropriation in an annual budget – While the state has made past long term commitments to supportive housing via the NY/NY Agreements, this is the first time it committed to five years’ worth of funding in one annual budget cycle.  ESSHI was funded through the state’s five year housing and homelessness plan, with over $1 billion for the first 6,000 units of supportive housing under the 15-year commitment.  While the state legislature will have to adopt this plan every year, it is unprecedented that they would put five years’ worth of funding in a one year budget.  This is important because without a long-term agreement like past NY/NY agreements, investors and nonprofits need a long term commitment from their government partners to ensure confidence.  This five year plan helped address that issue.

4. Interagency collaboration – An ESSHI Interagency Workgroup is the established policy body overseeing program implementation. The Workgroup includes representatives from eight State agencies including: Department of Health (DOH) which includes the AIDS Institute; Homes and Community Renewal (HCR); Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS); Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS); Office of Mental Health (OMH); Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence (OPDV); Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA); and Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). Decision-making is structured so that the human services agencies work in sync with the capital funders to ensure the integrity of the model.

5. Expanded Populations Served – ESSHI allows providers to serve one or more of eleven different populations. In addition to chronically homeless individuals and families, as well as people with mental health, substance abuse or HIV/AIDS, and at-risk youth, ESSHI also provides funding to serve people re-entering the community from incarceration or juvenile justice placement, victims/survivors of domestic violence, frail elderly and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.          

The first ESSHI Units opened in November of 2016. Finger Lakes Area Counseling & Recovery Agency opened eight units of permanent supportive housing in rural upstate New York targeted to people with substance use disorders.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH)

Oct.15.2018

The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) was founded in 1991 by Julie Sandorf and is now led by Deborah De Santis. Watch the video above to learn more!

The Network and its Members: Agents of Change

Oct.12.2018

The Network and its members have been at the table for many of the important advances in New York supportive housing. Watch the video above to see many of the pivotal wins advanced by the supportive housing community in New York. 

The Lift Up- A Reflection on NYC FUSE

Oct.11.2018

“Exciting ideas are not necessarily born of the laboratory or academic council. Sometimes they consume us while sitting in a hot bath or riding an elevator.” Albert Camus, Philosopher/Writer.

And so it was with Frequent Users Systems Engagement (FUSE). A conversation in an elevator between then Commissioners of the NYC Departments of Corrections (DOC), Martin Horn, and Homeless Services (DHS), Linda Gibbs, where they jokingly blamed each other for their respective challenges before pausing to reflect, “maybe we could work to solve our problems together?”  That gave birth to the NYC Discharge Planning Collaboration, the forerunner of FUSE.

FUSE was a simple idea: that supportive housing with specialized services could prevent homelessness and reduce recidivism for people leaving incarceration. Over three years, a pilot program which helped 100 people was designed and implemented by an extraordinary public-private partnership among CSH, DOC, DHS, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, NYC Housing Authority, and eight non-profit service and supportive housing providers: The Bridge, Brooklyn Community Housing and Services, Bowery Residence Committee, Breaking Ground, Community Access, Jericho Project, Palladia (now Services for the UnderServed), and Women’s Prison Association.

FUSE was the first model nationally using administrative data to screen people with criminal justice records into housing as opposed to screening them out. After countless hours of in-reach to jails and shelters, case conferencing, devising work-arounds to administrative hurdles, and no small amount of tears and laughter, FUSE proved it could make a difference. Not only were people identified through FUSE able to maintain their housing (at the same rates as other supportive housing initiatives), the program reduced homelessness and recidivism at levels indicating the program paid for itself. 

FUSE was expanded a few years later and evaluated by Columbia University. More recently it was the basis for the de Blasio Administration’s Justice Involved Supportive Housing initiatives. And CSH has worked to replicate and advance it nationally. FUSE has been implimented in over thirty jurisdictions, showing the potential of collaboration and dismantling the notion that some people are unhousable.

As I look back on the last thirteen years since FUSE started, I can think of no professional experience comparing to it, the partners at the table, the tenants who made the program their own, and the impact it’s had across the country. Being first of it’s kind made FUSE exceptionally challenging to launch.  When the project was at it’s most critical moments and felt like it was going off the rails, there was one distinct voice in the room that would keep everyone from giving up.

Kathleen Coughlin was a Deputy Commissioner at DOC who managed the project along with CSH and DHS. In a solid Staten Island accent and clear delivery, she would simply say that working in government meant everyone was constantly telling you things were impossible and couldn’t be done; and that our job was to reply, it doesn’t matter, we’re doing it anyway. Sadly, Kathy died this past August. 

The picture above is from a recognition dinner in 2008 celebrating the completion of the first FUSE initiative. Kathy is at the front table, surrounded by friends, colleagues, and people who were able to rebuild their lives through FUSE.

I’ll share a hope and I know those who worked on the first FUSE initiative would agree: that Kathy truly understood the imapct of her work, and how it would forever help change the national conversation on justice and housing.

Her dedication and vision lifted up every one of us, the FUSE initiative, and now thousands of formerly incarcerated people who have found a way home. 

NYC 15/15 - City’s Commitment to Supportive Housing

Oct.10.2018

In 2015, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio committed to creating 15,000 units of supportive housing in New York City over 15 years, the first time a City administration has funded its own supportive housing initiative.

NYC 15/15 is unique in many other ways. It is: 
 

1. Informed by a six-month Task Force process involving more than two dozen nonprofit and government stakeholders who had been charged with recommending improvements in every aspect of creating and providing services in supportive housing.

2. First long-term commitment to separate services and rental assistance funding streams so that rental assistance can rise without diminishing resources for services.

3. First commitment to create a rental assistance program that mimics Section 8, without being subjected to restrictive federal funding requirements.

4. The first long term commitment to provide supportive housing to at-risk families headed by a young adult 18-25.

5. The first long-term commitment to offer sufficient funding to provide services for all the members of an at-risk family.