A data-driven innovator in providing solutions to homelessness
Urban Pathways Hallet’s Cove supportive housing property in Astoria, Queens
Urban Pathways (UP) is dedicated to providing homeless and at-risk New Yorkers with the housing, services, and support they need to be self-sufficient. Urban Pathways offers outreach programs, a drop-in center, safe havens, and extended-stay and permanent supportive housing.
Fred Shack, Urban Pathways’ Chief Executive Officer, states: “The population we’re most concerned with are chronically homeless people who are living with mental illness, addictions or other disabilities. If we’re going to successfully engage them, we need to start by getting them off the street. Our safe havens and drop-in center are a critical resource.”
Urban Pathways’ outreach programs in New York City and at Newark Liberty International Airport serve as the first point of contact for many homeless New Yorkers. Outreach teams engage difficult-to-reach individuals and place them into safe housing as expeditiously as possible. Outreach programs connect with over 1,500 men and women annually.
The Olivieri Drop-In Center in Manhattan provides clients with meals, clothing, and showers in a safe and welcoming environment; it also provides overnight respite beds in collaboration with faith-based partners. Intensive case management, medical and psychiatric assessments and referrals, and housing placement assistance are offered at the Olivieri Drop-In Center, which provides services to an average of 75 men and women daily.
Urban Pathways’ Safe Havens offer a secure, low-threshold environment so that individuals can leave the streets and begin the process of finding a home of their own. Three Safe Havens provide housing and intensive support services to 130 men and women each day.
Through its residences and scatter-site supportive housing programs throughout the city, Urban Pathways helps adults achieve stability and self-sufficiency, and participate fully in life in the community. Urban Pathways provides a home for more than 800 individuals in its extended-stay and permanent supportive housing programs, including 69 low-income community residents; plans are in place to add to the housing portfolio to increase capacity to more than 1,000 individuals by the end of the decade.
Urban Pathways realizes that its residents need more than just housing to achieve independence and has developed programs to address specific needs. The Career Development Program provides vocational course work, one-on-one counseling, and job placement assistance to residents who wish to enter the workforce.
Untreated health conditions, long-term effects of chronic homelessness, mental illness, and/or substance abuse present significant barriers to traditional health care access for Urban Pathways’ clients. The Medical Wellness Program provides connections to community-based primary, specialty and urgent care and provides medical education to help clients improve their physical health.
Over the past forty years, Urban Pathways has transformed from a group of settlement houses offering assistance to street homeless in Times Square into one of the largest providers of housing and services to homeless men and women in New York City. As Mr. Shack comments, “Our mission as a social service organization has evolved to meet the ongoing crisis of homelessness in New York City, and will continue to do so until every man and woman living on the streets knows they have a safe and secure place to call home.”