Posted on March 6, 2015 by Jacquelyn Simone While an entire generation of New Yorkers has grown up in a city where mass homelessness, sadly, no longer seems shocking, it can be easy to forget that things don’t have to be this way and proven solutions are at hand. One of the most powerful and cost-effective strategies to ending homeless is permanent supportive housing. Although the 60,000 New Yorkers in shelter are made up mostly of families who lost their homes because of eviction, domestic violence or other external factors, an estimated two-thirds of adults sleeping on the streets suffer from mental illness. The supportive housing model meets the needs of this vulnerable group by offering both the stability of a permanent home and a comprehensive array of services to help them successfully manage their mental and physical health challenges. In addition to being a compassionate solution, it’s also fiscally responsible: Supportive housing saves taxpayer dollars otherwise spent on expensive institutional care, with average net savings of $10,100 per unit per year. The benefits are obvious, but unfortunately the number of people who qualify for supportive housing far surpasses the number of available units. The current City-State supportive housing agreement, NY/NY III, will expire this year, and Governor Cuomo’s budget proposes creating drastically fewer supportive housing units than are needed to meet the growing demand. With more New Yorkers than ever before in need of supportive housing, it is imperative that politicians fully embrace this proven approach. A recent Daily News column by Jerry Jones, the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, succinctly explains why supportive housing is essential in the fight against street homelessness. Supportive housing works by putting an end to the trap so many of these individuals get caught up in: cycling between street homelessness, shelters, emergency rooms, hospitals and jails that spend enormous amounts of taxpayer money but cannot solve the underlying problems. Instead, supportive housing gives the homeless the privacy of their own apartment with 24-hour access to an array of services needed to help them put their lives back on track, including mental health counseling, life skills, relapse support, connection to education, training and job placement, linkage to medical care, crisis management, along with parenting and family reunification support. Supportive housing is a key piece of Mayor de Blasio’s affordable housing plan. But it’s not up to the mayor alone. Since 1990, every New York mayor and governor has historically joined forces — negotiating three city-state “New York/New York Agreements” that collectively created more than 14,000 units of permanent supportive housing and became a nationwide model. The most recent NY/NY III agreement, which expires this year, reduced usage of costly municipal services for a net savings of $10,100 for each unit, every year. A 2013 analysis by the city’s Health Department documented that three-quarters of the formerly-homeless tenants remain stably housed. But with homelessness soaring, there is currently only one housing unit available for every six eligible applicants. Gov. Cuomo has talked about a much-needed fourth NY/NY agreement, but his proposal falls far short — fewer than 1,000 new units per year for the entire state, while experts have called for 3,000 a year for New York City alone. As de Blasio pointed out in his testimony in Albany this week, the governor’s plan would provide New York City with less than half the supportive housing created by NY/NY III, at a time when homelessness has nearly doubled.
