Was Cuomo Ever Serious About Solving Homelessness? Supportive Housing Funding is Nowhere to Be Seen

It’s been 154 days since Gov. Cuomo promised bold action on homelessness. Now, days before the end of the legislative session in Albany, not a single penny has been spent. What’s perhaps most disheartening is that it now appears he may have never intended to keep his promise in the first place.

At least that’s the way it seems to me.

Back in January 2016, New York was starting a winter that would include some of the coldest temperatures on record. At the same time, New York City — like scores of communities across the state — was battling record levels of homelessness. The combination of bitter cold and heartbreaking images of thousands of men and women sleeping on our streets galvanized New Yorkers. People demanded action.

Politicians raced to prove they had the best solution to the crisis. Never one to be outdone by anyone – let alone a rival like Mayor de Blasio, who had recently pledged to build 15,000 units of supportive housing for the homeless — Cuomo made an unprecedented promise: At his State of the State speech in January, Cuomo pledged to build 20,000 units of supportive housing over the next 15 years.

Advocates for the homeless were thrilled. In a state where 80,000 people are homeless, critical help seemed to be on the way.

When the state budget was delivered in April, it included funding for the first 6,000 supportive housing units, but required an additional Memorandum of Understanding between the governor and leaders of the Assembly and the Senate.

Now, with lawmakers about to go home for the rest of the year, no MOU has been signed. Not one dollar has been spent. And not one of our 80,000 homeless neighbors are a step closer to getting the supportive housing they need to break the cycle of poverty.

Realistically, if there’s no MOU by the end of the session, it means we’ll almost certainly see no funding, and no action, for many months to come.

The governor’s representatives claim this remains a priority for him, but the legislative leaders are the problem. But anyone who knows how Albany works knows that if Cuomo really wanted to get this done, it would get done.

The same advocates who were thrilled in January are left wondering whether Cuomo was ever really serious about housing the homeless, or whether this was all just a PR stunt designed to one-up a political rival he’s obsessed with overshadowing.

Forgive those of us who follow housing policy from being a little bit cynical. We’ve seen this kind of gamesmanship before. In 2014, after Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — another Cuomo rival — negotiated a record settlement with JP Morgan, the state received a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars, cash that was supposed to be directed to helping people harmed by the housing crisis. Under the terms of the deal, the attorney general would have the ability to direct those funds.

Then the governor teamed with legislative leaders and stripped the attorney general of his ability to spend the money. The governor’s 2014 budget allocated those funds, subject to an MOU similar to this year’s —  and nothing happened. The end of session came and went that June, and not a single dollar of those vital funds were spent. In fact, those funds weren’t actually allocated until the budget passed in 2016 — almost two full years later.

This is a pattern that sounds painfully familiar to anyone who has been watching the governor systematically big-foot the mayor on major initiatives, force huge new cost burdens onto the city and generally go out of his way to make life difficult for de Blasio — no matter the cost to indigent New Yorkers.

It is the worst kind of political gamesmanship. Not only does it produce terrible public policy, but it forces the most vulnerable people in our society to pay the price.

Five months after he made his promise, the weather is warmer and shelters are swelling to record levels. But not much else has changed. Is that what Cuomo wanted all along?

Brosnahan is president and CEO of Coalition for the Homeless.