Newsfeed Category: New York City

Network Talks Housing, Homelessness on New Radio Show

Oct.24.2013

The Network’s Ted Houghton appeared on “Human Services News and Views” this week to discuss two new campaigns to address homelessness and housing in New York City.

In a dialogue with program host Allison Sesso, Mr. Houghton spoke about the Housing First! campaign to expand and preserve affordable housing and the United to End Homelessness coalition of homeless and housing advocates. Both organizations have run campaigns this year to educate NYC’s mayoral candidates. They’ve also both released detailed policy manuals for the next mayor, titled Building Stronger and A Roadmap to Ending Homelessness. You can listen to the episode here and learn more about Housing First! and United to End Homelessness here.

“We’re very much encouraged that both candidates are talking about affordable housing,” Mr. Houghton said during the program. “The fact is that the next mayor has to do something about this issue. The good news is there are proven strategies that he can adopt to really make a dent in both the housing problem and the homelessness problem.”

CAMBA Holds Ribbon Cutting for 97 Crooke Ave.

Oct.11.2013

A capacity crowd gathered yesterday to celebrate the grand opening of CAMBA’s newest supportive housing residence. 

97 Crooke Avenue, also known as the Reverend Dan Ramm Residence, brings 53 units of supportive and low-income housing to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush. This $15.3 million development now houses a mix of formerly homeless adults who suffer from mental illness and low-income individuals from the community.

Yesterday’s festivities were distinctive and unique in several ways. Before entering the nine-story residence, attendees noshed on high-quality, organic donuts from a food truck parked just outside the residence.

Once inside, the roughly 100 guests heard the story of 97 Crooke Ave., a residence that brought many disparate partners together in the name of providing housing and support services to formerly homeless and low-income New Yorkers. 

Joanne Oplustil, CAMBA President/CEO and a Network Board Member, introduced each of the day’s guest speakers. NYS Rep. Rhoda Jacobs was the first to take the podium to congratulate and praise CAMBA.

“We know that decent, affordable housing is less costly to society than shelters, and yet we struggle for resources,” said Rep. Jacobs. “Fortunately, we have a warrior in Joanne.”

Ground Broken on Second MRT Supportive Housing Project

Oct.10.2013

Common Ground held a ground-breaking ceremony yesterday for the second NYC supportive housing residence to begin construction using NYS Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) capital funding.

The project, Boston Road, will bring 154 units of supportive housing to the Bronx. The residence will provide housing and services to a mix of low-income and formerly homeless individuals and seniors.

Dozens of friends and partners gathered on Wednesday to celebrate the start of construction. The event included a number of illustrious guest speakers, including NYS Homes & Community Renewal (HCR) Commissioner Darryl Towns, former NYC Council Member Helen Foster and NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Deputy Commissioner Eric Enderlin. Common Ground Executive Director Brenda Rosen served as the master of ceremonies for the late-morning event. 

“This is a creative approach to dealing with an epidemic [of homelessness],” Ms. Foster said.  “Let this be an example of what we do going forth in the city.” 

Gala Honoree: Frank Lipton

Oct.09.2013

Click here for information on tickets to our Gala!

Dr. Frank R. Lipton is the quintessential unsung hero. A key government partner at the NYC Human Resources Administration (HRA) for almost three decades, he has played an instrumental, behind-the-scenes role in the supportive housing movement. With little fanfare, Dr. Lipton helped to create the program design, referral and data tracking mechanisms that made supportive housing the successful, widely-replicated model it is today. Thanks to his service, thousands of formerly homeless and disabled New Yorkers have a home tonight. 

Dr. Lipton has been a constant behind New York’s historic New York/New York supportive housing agreements. He helped guide the design and passage of NY/NY I under Mayor Ed Koch and its ultimate signatory, Mayor David Dinkins. He helped usher in NY/NY II under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and then in 2005 was at the forefront again for a NY/NY III agreement under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. When all is said and done, the combined NY/NY commitments will have created nearly 15,000 supportive housing apartments – by far the largest supportive housing program in the country.

“Frank was a major mover and shaker in the creation of the first NY/NY Agreement, and he has remained a steadfast friend and advocate of supportive housing tenants and providers for the past 25 years,” says Tony Hannigan, Executive Director of the Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS). “Our community has been truly fortunate to have the quality and dedication of his leadership during four administrations.”

Drawing on his academic and professional background, Dr. Lipton has been a vital source of data on the outcomes associated with supportive housing.

Gala Honoree: True Colors Residence

Oct.08.2013

Click here for information on tickets to our Gala!

True Colors Residence is quite literally one of a kind: The first – and only – supportive housing residence for homeless and runaway lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) young people AND the first New York supportive housing project associated with a genuine star. 

This trailblazing residence is the result of the fortuitous pairing of West End Residences and musical icon (and recent Tony-winner) Cyndi Lauper. Long an LGBT advocate, Ms Lauper helped raise funds for True Colors, which is named after her 1986 song and album.

“The True Colors Residence provides these young people with a real home and the leg up and encouragement that will help them make it in the world,” says Ms Lauper.

To the 30 young adults who live here, the residence is an oasis from life on the street, which can be especially treacherous for LGBT youth – who make up an estimated 40% of all homeless youth in NYC.

“When my family rejected me for being transgender, I remember asking myself, ‘Where am I going to sleep? What am I going to eat?’” says True Colors Residence tenant Trina Carter. “Now, here I am at True Colors Residence, a place to better my life. What else can I ask for?”

Removing the Red Tape in Housing Homeless New Yorkers

Oct.07.2013

In May of this year, a diverse representation from the NYC homeless housing community and Continuum of Care traveled to Chicago for a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-sponsored retreat, a.k.a. "boot camp," to brainstorm what our biggest barriers were in housing chronically homeless veterans and other individuals and what we could do in the next 100 days to speed up the process. As a result of these collective efforts, the City is looking toward reducing the very longest time it takes to house a chronically street homeless person by 64%. It's also looking to recapture nearly $10 million in HUD funding.

Facilitated by the Rapid Results Institute and 100,000 Homes, the event included the NYC Departments of Homeless Services (DHS), Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) as well as the Network, Enterprise Community Partners, Homeless Services United, Common Ground, Goddard Riverside Community Center and Samaritan Village. Representatives from these agencies and organizations met for three days in Chicago.

Deciding what to focus on became easy once we cobbled together the following facts:

• NYC is sending back millions each year - an estimated $10 million this year alone in federal homeless housing assistance - because of a flaw in the HUD regulations and inconclusive guidance from Washington on how to keep that money in the city.
• It was taking an estimated 314 days and 24 steps to place our hardest to house - chronically street homeless individuals - into our most complicated supportive housing: NY/NY III housing with project based Section 8 rental subsidies. While it takes considerably less time to house the average homeless person in supportive housing, it was clear from mapping out the process that there was significant room for improvement for all referrals.
• It is difficult to target the inflow of veteran funding toward chronically homeless veterans in NYC because of the data-sharing challenges at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

New Coalition Releases “A Roadmap to Ending Homelessness”

Oct.07.2013

United to End Homelessness has released a comprehensive policy book to guide New York City’s next mayor and City Council in the effort to end homelessness. 

The book, titled A Roadmap to Ending Homelessness, is available to download here. It expands upon United to End Homelessness’ original policy platform, which the coalition unveiled earlier this year. You can read a New York Daily News op-ed on the release of the policy book here.

“Our hope is that this briefing book provides the next administration with the research, ideas and motivation to develop and start implementing a plan to end homelessness on day one,” says Network Deputy Executive Director Nicole Branca, who served as one of many co-authors on A Roadmap to Ending Homelessness.

United to End Homelessness is a coalition of over 130 homeless advocates, providers, homeless and formerly homeless individuals, faith leaders and other organizations from across New York City. The coalition formed to address the city’s current, record-high levels of homelessness. On any given night in NYC, 57,000 individuals sleep either in shelters or on the street. That number includes a staggering 22,000 children.

Grand Opening Held for Vyse Ave.

Oct.03.2013

Forty staff, partners and tenants gathered on October 2 for the official grand opening of Vyse Avenue Apartments, the latest Community Access supportive housing residence in the Crotona Park section of the Bronx. The building provides homes to 64 individuals with psychiatric disabilities and a history of homelessness. 

The festivities were casual and family-like, with Community Access CEO Steve Coe welcoming the organization’s Board Member Ramesh Shah to the podium. Mr. Shah thanked all the partners who made the residence possible, including the community that welcomed the building – and its tenants – into the neighborhood. Mr. Coe followed up these remarks by noting that Vyse Avenue had been the easiest of the organization’s dozen permanent supportive housing buildings to site. 

“We were told to meet with Bronx Desperadoes and it turned out the Executive Director’s mother had been involved with the mental health system, so he couldn’t have been more welcoming,” Mr. Coe said.

Steve then showed a short film that the National Equity Fund (NEF) and TD Bank had made about Vyse Avenue. The video, which you can watch below, features building tenant Katherine Brown. 

Sequestration Strikes HSI: An Interview with Jim Dill

Sep.26.2013

Over the past few months, the Network has fought to highlight the often-ignored effects of budget sequestration on low-income individuals and housing programs. In the below interview, we speak with Jim Dill, Executive Director of Housing & Services, Inc. (HSI), a supportive housing provider in New York City. Jim tells us about sequestration and its continued effects on HSI’s supportive housing residences and the vulnerable tenants they house. He speaks in particular about two residences: The Kenmore and The Cecil. To learn more about sequestration’s impact on the poor and formerly homeless, see our Sequestration Stories page.

The Network: Kenmore Hall provides housing and services to 325 of New York’s most vulnerable citizens. How has sequestration impacted the well-being of the residence and its tenants? 

Jim Dill: The Kenmore currently has seven vacant apartments attributable to sequestration. The sequester has led to a freeze on new tenant-based Section 8 vouchers. We are scrambling now to see if we can fill these empty units with another referral source. This is proving quite difficult, because tenants at Kenmore must meet HUD’s criteria for homelessness and have a rent subsidy. In the meantime, seven perfectly good apartments at the Kenmore remain vacant. Housing and services at this residence costs roughly $14,000 per year. That’s cheaper than any of the alternatives for New York’s most vulnerable: shelters, jails, hospitals, rehab, etc. It costs about $28,000 a year, for example, to house a single adult in a DHS shelter. That’s a $14,000 difference per person. With these seven vacancies, we could save the city at least $98,000 a year. Instead, because of sequestration, the apartments are just sitting there.

Has sequestration jeopardized the building’s day-to-day operations?

Yes. In accordance with our regulatory agreements, our tenants must have very low incomes and their rent is restricted to 30% of whatever they make. In the past, any rent increases would be funded through Section 8. Sequestration has frozen such rent increases.

Meet Robert, Sequestration Victim

Sep.10.2013

Robert Carrion was ready to move on. A military veteran living in the Bronx, Robert had plans to relocate to Orlando with his girlfriend. He secured a Section 8 voucher and visited Florida to find an affordable apartment. He found an ideal spot and began preparations for his big move.

It was then he got the call. Robert’s Section 8 voucher had been frozen. He held the phone, dumbfounded.

“I just thought, ‘What happened?’” Robert says. “That’s when I found out about sequestration.”

All across the country, sequestration has quietly affected the lives of low-income individuals like Robert. A result of the 2011 Budget Control Act, sequestration has forced the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to freeze the issuance of Section 8 vouchers. 

For Robert, sequestration has cost him an apartment, his new life in Florida and, sadly, even his relationship. Taxpayers, meanwhile, will lose out as well. Robert must now remain at Fordham Village, a supportive housing residence for veterans run by the nonprofit Jericho Project. The final blow: Another homeless veteran, one who could have moved into Robert’s apartment at Fordham Village and stabilized his life enough to move on, will remain homeless as a result of sequestration.