Fighting for Vital Services in This Year’s City Budget

Yesterday, Coalition for the Homeless joined Council Members, advocates, and service providers on the steps of City Hall to call for restoration of over $5 million in proposed budget cuts to services for formerly homeless individuals living with HIV and AIDS. This essential pot of money was left out of the Mayor’s preliminary budget proposal, but in the coming months, the Mayor’s office and the City Council will be negotiating a final City budget. In addition to these immediate funds, we called for humane, cost-effective solutions to the problem of record homelessness.

“Record numbers of homeless children and adults are crowding New York City’s shelter system, and Mayor Bloomberg’s budget plan and flawed policies will only make this terrible situation worse,” said Mary Brosnahan, Executive Director of Coalition for the Homeless. “The Mayor should sign on to the forward-thinking, fiscally-prudent plan advanced by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and General Welfare Committee Chair Annabel Palma. This plan would help thousands of homeless families move from shelters to permanent housing by targeting Federal housing resources, would reduce the homeless shelter population, and it would save New York taxpayers millions of dollars in shelter expenses. We hope Mayor Bloomberg will finally stop wasting taxpayer money on policies that have exacerbated the homelessness crisis and instead work with the City Council to include their smart, cost-effective plan in the FY 2013 budget.”

Following the press conference on the steps, the City Council held a hearing on the Department of Homeless Services’ proposed budget for next year. In his testimony, DHS Commissioner Seth Diamond admitted that the City had never bothered to estimate the cost to taxpayers of cutting off access to federally-financed housing programs like Section 8 vouchers and NYCHA vacancies – decisions that have directly contributed to record levels of homelessness.

We will continue to work with the City Council and pressure the Mayoral administration to enact these proven-effective policies.

NYC Homeless Shelter Costs Rising Due to Bloomberg Policy Failures

The NYC Independent Budget Office estimates that Mayor Bloomberg has under-budgeted $76 million for shelters next year in the face of rising homelessness and the Mayor’s refusal to provide housing assistance for homeless families – on the same day that administration officials admitted at an oversight hearing that they never did their own analysis.

The Independent Budget Office (IBO) today released its analysis of the Mayor’s FY 2013 preliminary budget plan (PDF), and the IBO found that shelter costs are bound to be much higher than the Mayor’s budget projects both this fiscal year and next. Here are the highlights of the IBO’s analysis:

The Department of Homeless Services (DHS) is likely to face budget challenges in 2012 and even tougher choices in 2013. With a growing census and longer lengths of stay in the city’s homeless shelters, costs are going up, and – in the case of family shelter – these costs appear likely to exceed what the city has budgeted for this year and next. Additionally, the lack of a new program or policy to replace the Advantage rental subsidy program that ended last year may further increase costs, especially for family shelters.

Based on IBO’s estimates of shelter costs, this suggests that family shelter could cost about $37.0 million more this year than budgeted (about $12.0 million of which would be city funds) and as much as $76.0 million more in fiscal year 2013 (about $24.0 million in city funds) given the increasing length of stay, higher census, and lack of a replacement for the Advantage program.

As we’ve noted many times, the Bloomberg administration is now spending much more in New York taxpayer dollars on the shelter system – where it costs $36,000/year to shelter a homeless family – because of the Mayor’s refusal to resume priority referrals of homeless shelter residents to proven Federal housing programs. Indeed, as we noted in our State of the Homeless report from last year, the Mayor’s failed experiment with flawed, time-limited rent subsidies like the Advantage program has already cast taxpayers more than $370 million in avoidable shelter costs – and has caused incalculable hardship to homeless kids and adults.

But astoundingly, in a New York City Council preliminary budget hearing today, Bloomberg administration officials admitted that they’ve NEVER conducted a cost analysis of the consequences of denying homeless families Federal housing assistance.

In the face of smart and pointed questioning by City Councilmember Brad Lander, NYC Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond reluctantly admitted that the City had never conducted a cost-savings analysis of this major policy shift – the sort of fiscal analysis that the Bloomberg administration routinely demands of policy proposals that it opposes, like living-wage legislation.

Diamond also, incredibly, feigned ignorance about the application process for the key Federal housing programs, public housing and Section 8 rental vouchers. At first he claimed that those programs were “not available” to homeless people. Then, again under pointed questioning from Councilmember Lander, he tried to deny a simple fact that has underscored more than 25 years of New York City homeless policy: that homeless families referred by the homeless services agency to the Federal housing programs’ waiting lists actually have the highest priority.

Indeed, even at the end of the questioning, Diamond STILL refused to acknowledge this simple fact, saying something about not knowing the answer. Well, in the interest of being helpful, the commissioner can easily find the answer in the annual plan of the New York City Housing Authority, which is created every year pursuant to Federal law – the whole document is here, and the relevant passages are:

Public Housing Waiting List (page 37): Highest Priority:

“1- Referrals from the New York City Department of Homeless Services or the HIV/AIDS Services Administration of the Administration for Children’s Services or the New York City Department or Housing Preservation and Development or the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.”

Section 8 Voucher Waiting List (page 41): Highest Priority:

“1 Referrals from the New York City Departments of Homeless Services.”

The bottom line: For a Mayor and an administration whose PR spin is that they craft their policies based on data and research, it’s obvious that, when it comes to homeless policy, nothing could be further from the truth.

Must-see Video: NYC’s Wrongful Denial of Shelter Forces Homeless Kids & Mom to Sleep at Penn Station

A stunning local TV news report shows how City officials’ wrongful denial of shelter forced a homeless mother and her two children to sleep at Penn Station. And as outrageous as the story is, it’s the sort of thing that happens every day under the Bloomberg administration’s shelter denial rules.

Last night WNBC News aired an investigation into the circumstances that forced April Gayles and her two children, ten-year-old Angelina and six-year-old Nicholas, to be repeatedly forced to sleep at New York City’s Pennsylvania Station train terminal:

It’s 8 p.m. on a school night – a time when 10-year-old Angelina and 6-year-old Nicholas Gayles should be finishing homework and preparing for bed. Instead, they are dragging suitcases along a city street looking for a place to stay.

Just moments earlier, the city informed their mother, April Gayles, that it would no longer provide them with shelter. The Gayles family has been through this before – three times now.

“Every time you feel frustrated because you don’t know why they keep doing it,” Angelina tells News 4 in an I-Team exclusive. “They’re the meanest people on earth.”

The ten-minute news clip, available here, should be required viewing for anyone interested in how the Bloomberg administration’s shelter denial rules are cutting off shelter and vital services to desperate children and adults every day. It’s one of those rare TV news investigations – like Sarah Wallace’s amazing WABC News report from last year – that not only illustrates the plight of homeless families wrongfully denied shelter, but delves into the mechanics of how City bureaucrats close the shelter door on needy families each day.

In the WNBC report, City officials repeatedly defend their denial of shelter to the Gayles family – but never once manage to refute the fundamental fact that the family had no other place to go, no other housing that was actually available and suitable. WNBC reporter Melissa Russo inexplicably calls the City’s defense of its actions “compelling,” but every one of the City’s claims falls apart, often right on camera.

– NYC Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond says the family can live with a friend who kicked them out of her home. But a City bureaucrat later admits on camera that the friend told City investigators the Gayles family was not welcome in her home. And WNBC later confirmed a police report corroborating that fact.

– The news report includes a bewlildering montage of a dozen City bureaucrats essentially smearing and attacking Ms. Gayles, with unsubstantiated claims that she “missed appointments” or didn’t return phone calls, but it’s all an attempt to evade the fundamental fact that the family had no place to go.

– Finally, City officials make the inexplicable claim that they must deny shelter to families because, allegedly, so many families come to New York Cityseeking shelter – a ridiculous claim unsupported by the facts and bizarrely illustrated by some hyperbolic WNBC graphics. But City data has long shown that the vast majority of homeless families and individuals seeking help in the municipal shelter system previously resided at NYC addresses. And certainly Ms. Gayles did not come to NYC to enter the shelter system – she came with a Federal housing voucher seeking an apartment and stayed with a friend, becoming homeless only after being kicked out of her friend’s home and unable to find a suitable apartment to match her voucher.

– Ultimately, the City reversed its earlier and repeated denials of shelter and deemed Ms. Gayles and her kids “eligible” for shelter. But the fact remains that nothing changed from the moment the Gayles family first applied for shelter – they were just as homeless on day one, and City officials knew from day one that the family had no place to go. The only difference was a potentially embarrassing TV news investigation.

All in all, the Gayles family’s story is exactly what we see at Coalition for the Homeless walk-in Crisis Intervention Services every day – homeless children and families wrongfully denied shelter due to systematic bureaucratic errors and the City’s punitive shelter denial rules.

Last May, we released a briefing paper showing how the Bloomberg administration was turning away more families at the shelter door than ever before. Recent City data show that a bad situation has gotten even worse:

– In 2011 (through November), an average of 66 percent of all families seeking shelter each month was not deemed “eligible” by the Department of Homeless Services.

– In the last City fiscal year (FY 2011), nearly 44 percent of all homeless families with children who were ultimately deemed eligible for shelter had their applications denied one or more times.

Last year, we wrote that “Bloomberg administration officials have provided no explanation for why, in the midst of high unemployment and rising poverty, the City is denying shelter to more children and families than ever.” The same is true today. Hopefully the hardships endured by Ms. Gayles and her children will shed a spotlight on the Bloomberg administration’s harmful denial of shelter and help to some of New York’s most vulnerable families.

Sign our petition to tell Bloomberg to stop denying shelter to needy families.