Posted on June 3, 2015 by Jacquelyn Simone Supportive housing ends chronic homelessness by providing vital services and the stability of a permanent home to people with mental illness and other special needs. And yet despite an unprecedented homelessness crisis, New York State is proposing to decrease funding for this lifesaving resource. In addition to being a compassionate solution to homelessness, supportive housing is also fiscally sound. When factoring in the costly cycle of hospital visits, shelter stays and arrests associated with chronic homelessness, research has estimated that each individual or family in supportive housing saves taxpayers $10,100 per year. The State’s plan to decrease funding for supportive housing is thus particularly counterproductive and ill-conceived. John Spina summarized the situation in the Gotham Gazette: Despite [advocacy groups’] calls to dramatically increase the program’s capacity, Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a NY/NY IV agreement that creates 5,000 new units statewide over the next seven years, 4,000 of which will be in New York City. It represents one-sixth of the advocates’ stated need and roughly half of the previous agreement, which was signed in 2005 when New York City homelessness fell below 35,000 people. In order to fund the project, Governor Cuomo has allocated $183 million of JPMorgan bank settlement monies to NY/NY IV over the next five years, but Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy group, estimates only $66 million is earmarked strictly for homeless programs. Additional funds for supportive housing through initiatives like the Homeless Housing Assistance Program were also cut when the state budget diminished its capital budget from $64 million to $56 million in each of the next five years. Moreover, the governor has proposed limiting the state’s share of the obligation to supportive housing. In the previous three NY/NY agreements the state was accountable for 80 percent of funding, while New York City was responsible for the other 20 percent. NY/NY IV, which will go into effect next year, stipulates a 50/50 split. … “Clearly, there must be a greater investment of state resources to match both the need and the city’s more realistic planned investments,” said Shelly Nortz, The Coalition of the Homeless’ executive director of policy, during her testimony at the state budget hearing on housing. Along with Coalition for the Homeless, 16 of New York’s top homeless advocacy groups as well as over 200 businesses and organizations endorsed a letter to Governor Cuomo urging him to amend his proposal. “As NY/NY III comes to a close it is time to raise production up to a level that begins to responsibly meet the staggering need, not to reduce production by half. The lives and well-being of tens of thousands of fragile New Yorkers depend on bringing this proven solution to homelessness to scale in New York.”
