Categories: New York City
04.21.2016
The most significant change to homeless services in NYC in the last two decades.
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On April 11, the Mayor announced the results of the review of the City’s delivery of services to homeless individuals. This effort, overseen by HRA Commissioner Steve Banks and First Deputy Mayor Tony Shorris, resulted in a comprehensive plan that includes significant programmatic and policy changes to improve the delivery of services and shifts the focus to preventing vulnerable New Yorkers from becoming homeless and rehousing those who do become homeless.
The plan also includes major structural changes and reforms including:
- the implementation of an integrated management structure with both the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) and the Human Resources Administration (HRA).
- both HRA and DHS will report to a single Commissioner, current HRA Commissioner Steve Banks.
- the consolidation of all prevention and rehousing operations within similar groups at HRA.
- DHS will focus on managing shelter operations and developing new types and models of shelters.
The City projects that this consolidation will result in $38 million in administrative and programmatic savings that will come from the elimination of duplicative administration functions and that this savings will help to offset the $66 million cost of new programs to be included in the Mayor’s Executive budget.
The plan was informed by the review process that the City undertook with the assistance of a consulting company to assess the strengths and challenges of the current system. This process included interviews of 400+ people, including DHS and HRA staff, staff from other City agencies, shelter and homeless services providers, advocates, homeless people, former DHS commissioners, national experts, elected officials, researchers, and HUD.
The plan focuses on four key elements – prevention, rehousing, street homelessness, and improving shelter conditions. It outlines forty-six separate systematic reforms. Several of these reforms have been announced publicly already and implementation has begun. These initial reforms include the creation and development of 15,000 new units of supportive housing in New York City and doubling the number of drop-in centers to provide services to the street homeless population.
Here are the highlights of the review that relate to our supportive housing community:
- an increased emphasis on prevention. Eviction and domestic violence are the main drivers of homelessness in NYC. Significant resources have been added to prevention services such as Homebase, to legal services to help reduce and prevent evictions, and to increasing rental assistance to help rehouse those who have become homeless more quickly.
- expansion of target services and rental assistance for runaway and homeless youth with the Dept. of Youth & Community Development (DYCD) shelters who are at risk for entering DHS shelters.
- creation of a new City/State Task Force focused on individuals being discharged from State prisons.
- creation of a new City/State Task Force focused on implementation of community-based programs to eliminate the need for DHS mental health shelters.
- provision of services and rental assistance to those identified as at-risk with mental health needs and who are cycling between homelessness and jails.
- fully launching the HOME-STAT initiative to address street homelessness.
There will be a Chief Homeless Services Administrator for DHS and a Chief Social Services Administrator for HRA both of who will report to Social Services/HRA Commissioner Steve Banks who will continue to report to the Deputy Mayor for Health & Human Services. The Chief Homeless Services Administrator will oversee shelter operations and management as well as supporting innovation by providers.
The areas of prevention and rehousing are being moved to HRA and the Chief Social Services Administrator will oversee these areas in addition to continuing to be responsible for the agency’s main functions of public assistance and entitlement benefits administration.
A reform of note to the supportive housing and larger homeless services community is that the City plans to incorporate the NYC Continuum of Care’s strategic planning into its policy and planning process and will establish a leadership reporting structure. The City will also explore how to further a coordinated assessment and access system. The City will also create an Interagency Homelessness Accountability Council which will be comprised of a number of City agencies to coordinate and alleviate homelessness across agencies.
A major change in the shelter portion of the review is the City’s plan to phase out cluster shelters and commercial hotels. There will also be a greater focus on targeting services for different populations including single adults, youth, and individuals experiencing domestic violence. The City will increase services and housing for individuals experiencing and fleeing domestic violence by expanding HRA’s No Violence Again/Domestic Violence stations to DHS Tier II family shelters and expanding the number of domestic violence shelters by adding 300 new emergency beds and 400 new Tier II units. The City will increase safety and improve conditions in shelters by collaborating with the NYPD on a management review and retraining program and expanding its Shelter Repair Squad 2.0 operation. The City will assess partially converting some current shelter sites into permanent housing using new shelter models such as Gateway and Homestretch that will include affordable housing, community space and shelter units in the same location. The City will continue its expansion of DYCD shelter capacity for homeless youth to reach a total of 750 beds by FY19.
The City will move rehousing program management from DHS to HRA and will develop a centralized reporting structure. The City will also streamline the HPD housing placement process to connect homeless clients to HPD financed units. There will also be a consolidation of the City’s various rental assistance programs (LINC, SEPS and City FEPS) to streamline operations and to increase shelter move outs.
The City will also increase enforcement of the source of income discrimination law by training and dedicating HRA staff to test and identify potential discriminatory practices and to supplement the efforts of the City’s Human Rights Commission in enforcing the law. You can read more here about the law here. Another important change is that the City will move to implement Critical Time Intervention to provide more effective and enhanced aftercare services.
Overall, this 90-Day Review represents the most significant change to homeless services seen in the last two decades. The plan offers a broad and more holistic approach to addressing the homelessness crisis. Please read the full report here.