Newsfeed Category: Network Events

The Network Hosts Siting Workshop for Members

Apr.18.2019

On the morning of April 9th, 22 Network members gathered to learn more about the art of siting supportive housing. The workshop included presentations from Cynthia Stuart, the Network’s Chief Operating Officer, and Ralph Fasano, Executive Director of Concern for Independent Living, extensive discussion among members and an opportunity to examine and respond to fictional siting scenarios.

Learning How to Lobby: The Network Offers Members a How-To on Advocacy and Lobbying

Mar.22.2019

On February 28th, about a week before the Network’s annual Lobby Day, some 40 member staff and tenants joined the Network for an interactive workshop generously hosted by Urban Pathways at the Ivan Shapiro House in Manhattan. The training featured everything from the fundamentals of the state budget process to how to navigate the Capitol Building. Yet an overarching goal was to incorporate tenants’ and staff’s real-life experiences in order to forcefully communicate the need for additional funding for supportive housing.

The Network, Members and Tenants Meet with Over 60 Legislators in Albany

Mar.11.2019

One of the Network’s most beloved days of the year – Lobby Day – began at the crack of dawn on March 5th with staff and tenants from all over the state traveling to Albany for a day of impressing on state legislators the urgent need for increased, adequate funding for new and existing supportive housing. More than 100 tenants and staff from more than 30 organizations met with more than 60 legislators and their staff.

One of the most powerful aspects of our meetings was the presence of tenants who shared real-life stories of how supportive housing has transformed their lives in a holistic, sustainable way. As one tenant said with the conviction of a lived experience:

“Supportive housing is not only a place to be or a roof over the head, but a set of tools and services that empower a person to get back up… and stay up.”

Joint Venture Workshop Brings Together Nonprofits and Developers to Discuss Deal-Making

Dec.07.2018

Building on years of joint venture research and events, the Network hosted its first ever hands-on workshop on negotiating joint venture partnerships in supportive housing development. The event was hosted by Capitol One and facilitated by Network and Enterprise Community Partners staff members. CEOs and development professionals from 18 nonprofit organizations in New York City, as well as development partners from Bronx Pro and CSD Housing attended the morning workshop.

Supportive Housing: The innovative model for ending chronic homelessness

Sep.17.2018

WSFSSH's Laura Jervis (left); St. Francis Friends of the Poor's Father Tom, Fathers John (center); Broadway Housing Community's Ellen Baxter (right).

Supportive housing had a number of mothers and fathers, all of whom were trying to help the most vulnerable New Yorkers — homeless people, people living with mental illness, the elderly, and those living the most marginalized lives — and who were all, simultaneously, coming to the same conclusion: to make a difference in the lives of the people they cared about, they could no longer just provide services. Somehow they would also need to figure out how to provide them with housing AND services.

It is hard to imagine now that there was no such thing as widespread homelessness in New York City before the late 70s. Sure, there were homeless people, but nothing like what happened when massive amounts of "housing of last resort," including rundown Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing and dilapidated hotels, were knocked down at an alarming rate to make room for market rate housing. Since the 60s, deinstitutionalization had meant that tens of thousands of people who had only lived in psychiatric institutions joined the ranks of other very vulnerable individuals who were living in whatever housing they could afford. As this housing disappeared, people with the least resources found themselves with nowhere to go. Suddenly there were people sleeping on the streets everywhere and elderly women pushing grocery carts with their worldly goods inside.

Ellen Baxter (second row, third from left)

Advocates across the City began fighting for the most basic forms of housing, finally winning a seminal victory in the courts with the Callahan decree in 1981 guaranteeing homeless New Yorkers a right to shelter. Meanwhile, Ellen Baxter, and Kim Hopper went into the streets to interview homeless people sleeping in public places and found that many homeless New Yorkers needed more than shelter to thrive: they also needed easy access to an array of social services.

This was the conclusion that many others were coming to experientially on their own. Laura Jervis was seeing (and abhorring) the term “bag ladies” all over the Upper West Side. Elizabeth Stetcher Trebony was seeing the same thing for elderly people in Midtown. Fathers John McVean and John Felice were ministering to poor people living in SROs in Chelsea, only to find that a huge number of them had come from living in psychiatric institutions. And Stephan Russo was seeing poor tenants on the Upper West Side lose their housing to gentrification. All of these individuals were organically moving toward the same solution to all these problems — own the housing and provide necessary services.

Stephan Russo, John Tynan, Bill Traylor, Elizabeth Trebony

Ms. Trebony, who went on to create Project FIND was the first to begin the process of buying and rehabbing an old SRO and turning it into supportive housing although completing the task of  turning the old Woodstock Hotel into supportive housing ended up taking nearly two decades. So the first pioneers to actually buy a building, rehab it and offer services to the most vulnerable were Father John McVean and Father John Felice of St. Francis Friends of the Poor.

The Fathers John ran the Thursday bread line at their church on 31st Street where they met many residents from the Aberdeen, an SRO in terrible disrepair one block away. As Father McVean did outreach to seniors at the Aberdeen, he discovered that there were also 150 deinstitutionalized people from psychiatric institutions, causing him to cobble together a group of volunteers to provide onsite psychiatric and social work services to residents. All went well with “The Aberdeen Project” until the owners decided they wanted to convert it into a tourist hotel.

With the imminent eviction of the vulnerable people with whom they had been working so closely, the Fathers John sat down one evening, each with a glass of scotch, put up their feet, and said "let’s buy our own hotel" having, of course, no idea what that entailed.

Father John Felice at signing of the NY/NY Agreement; Father John McVean (left) and Father John Felice (right)

They soon found out. With the help of friends and supporters, they found a building on East 24th Street and raised enough money to buy it. Their Provincial administration then provided the money needed for renovations, HRA, OMH and psychiatric staff from Bellevue provided on site services. So it was that on November 24th, 1980, the first St. Francis Residence opened and the first supportive housing was born.

Ms. Trebony, in the meantime, started Project FIND as part of a national demonstration project on elderly advocacy and was an early vocal opponent of the destruction of West Side SROs. In 1975, the agency obtained a management and operating lease on the Woodstock Hotel, a former luxury hotel located in the heart of Times Square that had fallen into deplorable condition with only 80 of its 320 rooms habitable. Through the blood, sweat, and tears of hundreds of federally funded low-income city workers in the CETA Maintenance program, Project FIND rehabilitated the building from a nearly abandoned eyesore into permanent housing for over 200 seniors. A Senior Center on the second floor of the hotel was added in 1977 which included a social service case management component. Project FIND purchased the building in 1979 but the struggle to make it fully habitable extended until 1995.

Meanwhile, Ellen Baxter was meeting with and following in the footsteps of the Fathers John. She formed a new nonprofit called the Committee for The Heights Inwood Homeless (CHIH) (now called Broadway Community Services) designed to provide a secular model that  garnered investment from every level of government.

In the early 1980s, CHIH transformed an apartment building on West 178th Street into 55 units of supportive housing finally opening in 1986. While the St. Francis residences had relied on simple financing packages, renovation of this building, known as “The Heights,” required an extremely complex combination of funding sources, including a low interest HPD Participation Loan from the city (for capital and acquisition costs), a state Special Needs Housing Act grant, private bank loans, and federal tax credits.

Ellen Baxter (left) and Tony Hannigan (third from right and above)

Operating costs for The Heights were subsidized through a new federal subsidy which provided rental support for low-income tenants. But the Heights introduced another innovation: the notion of partnering with another non-profit to provide onsite services. Those were to come from a partnership with Columbia University Community Services (CUCS) (now called the Center for Urban Community Services).

CUCS President & CEO Tony Hannigan’s story began a few years out of graduate school in 1981 when, he was tasked with a field initiative of locating vulnerable homeless single people staying in SROs — and remembers that 40% of SRO housing stock had been lost to gentrification at that time. As Ellen was working on transforming the Heights, CUCS applied to the Department of Mental Health to provide services to the tenants.

Another motivating force behind the birth of supportive housing was coming from communities’ desire to preserve and revitalize what they perceived as rapidly disappearing affordable housing. Thus, in 1981, when the West 87th Street Block Association heard that a deteriorating SRO, Capitol Hall, might be replaced with luxury housing, they approached Goddard Riverside Community Center and The Settlement Housing Fund to help preserve it. Goddard purchased the property in 1983 and started rehabbing it the following year into 202 supportive housing units.

Meanwhile, also on the Upper West Side, Laura Jervis was doing outreach to elderly people living in SROs there, having recently graduated from seminary. The now-retired West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing (WSFSSH) Executive Director witnessed first-hand the fear people had to leave their rooms and the impact of isolation on elderly communities. She formed a coalition of community groups and religious institutions from the West Side to help these individuals, and WSFSSH was born. Their first building was The Marseilles, which Laura insisted on staffing with a social worker. “It’s hard to imagine today, but having social services on-site in senior housing was a radical idea in 1980!”

Laura Jervis maintains that seniors and those who have experienced the trauma of homelessness need more than just housing — her advocacy message from the start. “Over the years, in all of our buildings, it is the sense of community that is developed by residents and staff that has been the key to the success of our mission.”

Among the most ambitious and prolific early adopters of supportive housing in the early 1980s was Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens who melded their mission of serving the most vulnerable and combined it with the Church’s significant real estate portfolio by  converting three vacant schools and a convent into 225 units of supportive housing called Caring Communities. The organization put together twelve separate funding sources to finance the project, including an HPD Participation Loan, federal Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation rental support and state Homeless Housing Assistance Program funding.

Another significant contribution from Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens was as a crucible for a generation of powerful advocates: Executive Director John Tynan had the great good fortune to have Bill Traylor, Connie Tempel, and Laura Mascuch all working for him in housing development or management.

As these buildings were opening, however, the question of who could live in them came to the forefront. Thus, in the mid-1980s, Stephan Russo of Goddard Riverside Community Center called together other early pioneers to ensure that homeless neighbors and community members were going to continue to be served in this new model of housing, leading to the now-normal 60/40 mix of individuals referred from the shelters and low income individuals from the community. The coalition became the SRO Providers Group, which then met regularly to share promising strategies and to lobby city and state government in a single, unified voice.

The SRO Providers Group evolved into the Supportive Housing Network of New York.

Largest conference of the supportive housing community in the nation

Sep.06.2018

The Network initiated the first ever supportive housing conference in 2000 to gather the supportive housing community with the goal of sharing and learning about the world of supportive housing. Our New York State Supportive Housing Conference is now the largest supportive housing conference in the nation with over 1700 guests who hear from more than a 100 experts, innovators and leaders in the field. The conference is also a celebration of our community’s successes and innovations. Check out the video above for highlights of our guests and speakers over the past 18 years.

How Racism Has Informed the Homelessness Crisis: Talk by Marc Dones

Jul.19.2018

The workshop also explored the homelessness landscape from a racial equity lens. It provided the audience with the historical context of how racism has led to minorities being over represented in the homeless population today.

Workshop 2: Tools to implement anti-racist policies at your agency

The second workshops by Marc Dones centers around providing the audience with tools and strategies that can transform systems to better serve the needs of the most vulnerable populations. They spoke about the importance of specificity in equity-based work and having diversity at the decision making tables.

18th Annual Supportive Housing Conference Brings 1,500 People to Share, Learn and Innovate

Jun.26.2018

View the photo slideshow here!

The 18th Annual Supportive Housing Conference was a celebration of New York’s unique leadership in development, financing and social services in supportive housing. With over 1,700 registrants, 22 workshops and a keynote by acclaimed author and poet, Jacqueline Woodson, it was our most successful conference yet!

The day began with the Network’s Board Chair Brenda Rosen welcoming the crowd. The Network’s Executive Director Laura Mascuch thanked the supportive housing community for setting the example for what supportive housing can do to break the cycle of homelessness. She recognized the social staff and shared their stories of dedication and transformation with the audience.  

“I want to take this moment in time to speak about the staff who work in supportive housing day-in and day-out. Many of you are in the room today, you are the reason why transformation can happen in individual lives,” she said.

Our keynote speaker for the event, Jacqueline Woodson moved the crowd to tears with her reading of Each Kindness and talking about empathy and kindness and what it means for homeless people to not be seen. She applauded attendees for their dedication and hard work in providing a helping hand to those most in need.

Eight simultaneous workshops in the morning session followed the keynote. The highly popular “Addressing the Homelessness & Affordable Housing Crisis” panel included key city and state policy makers: Steven Banks, NYC Department of Social Services Commissioner; Barbara Guinn, NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA)’s Executive Deputy Commissioner;  Dr. Ann Marie T. Sullivan, NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH) Commissioner; Maria Torres-Springer, NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner; RuthAnne Visnauskas, NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) Commissioner and CEO, and moderated by the Network’s Laura Mascuch.

The morning also included a standing-room-only presentation by Marc Dones, a prominent anti-racist trainer and educator. Marc explored the glaring racial disparities in homelessness trends and trajectories and discussed the role racism has played in the homelessness crisis. They also conducted a second late-afternoon workshop on how to implement anti-racist policies at your organization.

This year we also had members of the New York Police Department presenting with representatives from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene about new strategies and programs they are implementing to improve responses to crises involving people struggling with mental health issues.

Another popular morning session included a panel on siting for new developments. Moderated by Council Member Stephen Levin, the workshop panelists included nonprofit developers, a government partner and a consultant. This group shared tips and success stories on how nonprofits can work with local community groups and businesses to garner support.

Other morning workshops included a panel discussion on the Joint Venture Guidebook, a panel on cost containment, a panel on using the “Explosive Child” approach by members of the Center for Urban Community Services’ Intensive Mobile Treatment team and a presentation by Joseph’s House & Shelter on “Ethical Dilemmas in Housing First for Families.”

Attendees enjoyed a networking luncheon and then returned for two rounds of afternoon workshops.

Some highlights from the afternoon workshops included a thought-provoking discussion moderated by Council Member Rafael Salamanca on how nonprofits and community organizations are battling the opioid crisis among the homeless population with representatives from Acacia Network, Care for the Homeless, Project Renewal and BronxWorks.

A conversation on the City’s commitment to creating 15,000 new units of supportive housing was also in the afternoon line-up. It included HRA’s Kristin Misner-Gutierrez, HPD’s Emily Lehman, and DOHMH’s Gail Wolsk, and was moderated by the Network’s Rebecca Sauer.

A standing-room-only discussion on “Housing for Health: Lessons from LA” featured Dr. Mitchell Katz, President of NYC Health + Hospitals and Bill Pickel, Executive Director of Brilliant Corners moderated by Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services, Dr. Herminia Palacio. The panelists discussed the unique program that has already housed more than 4000 homeless people in less than four years, with a goal of eventually housing 10,000. Other workshops focused on conflict resolution and addressing vicarious trauma for staff. We also had an excellent conversation on how best to serve aging tenants and the needs of trans and gender non-conforming tenants.

We also had workshops focusing on development and finance including “Developing Supportive Housing in Trying Times,” and “From the Board Room to the Budget: Realizing Your Housing Development Vision.”  

The late afternoon sessions also featured some more policy focused workshops. Members of the ESSHI workgroup discussed the first two years of implementing and supporting new development under the ESSHI program and the eleven different populations it serves. Other policy conversations included one on hopes and fears of housing policies on a federal level.

There was also a panel to discuss the new CAPS (Coordinated Assessment and Placement Systems) process, which is now mandated by HUD and kicked off implementation in January 2018.

Lamb Financial Group sponsored our ever-popular cocktail reception in the Marriott Marquis’ spectacular lounge overlooking Broadway.

We would like to express our enormous gratitude to everyone who attended, spoke at, and volunteered for the conference. We salute you, and thank you for working together to fulfill the largest commitment to supportive housing in history. Hope to see you again at next year’s conference!

Watch our conference slideshow here.

Government Partners Discuss Upcoming Round of ESSHI Funding in a Panel Discussion

Apr.23.2018

The Network hosted two panel discussions last week on the Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative (ESSHI) in advance of this year’s Request for Proposals (RFP),scheduled to be released imminently. The workshops, held in Albany and Buffalo, highlighted the ESSHI process including what what’s new in the upcoming RFP, how to access capital funding through both OTDA HHAP (Homeless Housing and Assistance Program), and HCR (Homes and Community Renewal). A robust Q&A followed with the audience covering topics such as NIMBY and siting issues, pre-development funding and clarifications on changes around the Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) population.

The panels, moderated by the Network’s Executive Director, Laura Mascuch, were comprised of representatives from three state agencies:  the Office of Mental Health (Moira Tashjian, Associate Commissioner and Chair of the ESSHI Interagency Workgroup), Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (Rick Umholtz, Director for the Bureau of Housing & Support Services) and Homes and Community Renewal (Leora Jontef, VP of Multifamily Finance-New Construction & Sean Fitzgerald, Assistant Commissioner).  In the audience were many of the state agencies also involved in the ESSHI Interagency Workgroup including NYS Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS), NYS Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) and NYS Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence (OPDV). Over 150 people attended the events including a mix of nonprofit members, developers, bankers and syndicators.

Several clarifications were discussed.  The new RFP will treat the Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) category differently. Projects serving mental health, substance use disorders, HIV/AIDS, and other Department of Health subpopulations that include 30 or more ESSHI units will be required to dedicate at least 25% of those supportive units to high Medicaid users.

The panelists also clarified that ESSHI will grant extensions beyond the 12 month conditional award period for projects that have demonstrated they are further along in the development process, but they also stressed that there is no penalty for re-applying annually. 

Attendees were encouraged to talk to both OTDA and HCR about possible projects early on in the process.  Both OMH (Office of Mental Health) and OASAS, have predevelopment funding available that can be accessed once a conditional award is issued. 

The Network wishes to thank our hosts for these events, NYS Homes and Community Renewal in Albany and Evergreen Health Services in Buffalo. Both workshops were followed by networking mixers that were robustly attended.  We would also like to acknowledge and thank our funders, the Oak Foundation, the van Ameringen Foundation, Robin Hood, New York Community Trust, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Capital One for their generous support of the Network’s Getting to 35K Capacity Building Initiative.    

Celebrating the Year in Supportive Housing

Mar.16.2018

Network members gathered on the evening of March 15 at Scandinavia House for the Network’s Annual Meeting. Nonprofit providers, city officials, architects, developers, funders and other members of our community came together to meet, mingle and hear about the past year’s accomplishments.

Corey Johnson, the newly elected Speaker of the New York City Council, was our key note speaker, and addressed the 150 attendees in the room with a ton of enthusiasm, praise and support for supportive housing.

“You all know that housing really is health care. Until you put a roof over someone’s head, you cannot expect them to be sober, you cannot expect them to fight drug addiction, you cannot expect them to deal with chronic illnesses,” he said.

Speaker Johnson also reiterated his commitment to supportive housing and praised our members for their extraordinary accomplishments and work. He added that in the four years he’s been on the City Council he’s never even once received a single complaint about any of the supportive housing residences in his district.  

“Thanks to the amazing work done by you all, we’re changing the narrative of “not in my backyard to YES in my backyard,” he exclaimed to a cheering audience.  

The Network’s board chair and CEO of Breaking Ground, Brenda Rosen, kicked off the speaking program with warm welcoming remarks for the supportive housing community. “In the face of all obstacles, we remain steadfast and committed to our work,” she said. Executive Director of Concern for Independent Living Ralph Fasano presented the Network’s financials to the audience and the Network’s Executive Director, Laura Mascuch, shared the networks accomplishments over the last year.

Guests spent the evening networking, marveling at the beautiful new residences adorning the walls and showcased in a slideshow, as well as checking out a slideshow of photos from openings and other events from 2017. Catered by the incomparable City Beet Kitchen, the event once again reminded us how lucky we are to represent this stellar community.

Check out the evening highlights in our Faceboook photo album.