While the ongoing pandemic has posed numerous challenges to providing services to homeless and at-risk New Yorkers safely, we have never stopped meeting the needs of the most vulnerable families and individuals in our city. Below is a summary of just some of the Coalition’s accomplishments over the past year.

The Grand Central Food Program – the largest nightly mobile soup kitchen in the United States – served between 900-1,100 meals per night at 25 street locations around Manhattan and the Bronx, totaling more than 354,000 meals over the course of the year. We also continued to distribute PPE and other critical items including clothing, sleeping bags, toiletry kits, and gift cards for emergency essentials.

The Eviction Prevention Program saved 613 households from becoming homeless by providing one- time rental arrears grants. The Crisis Intervention Program helped nearly 900 individuals per month via our hotline to access safe, appropriate shelter, secure benefits and entitlements, and receive referrals to legal and mental health services. The Client Advocacy Program helped 62 chronically homeless individuals with physical disabilities or mental illness to secure government benefits and obtain supportive housing. The Emergency Mail Program provided 1,700 homeless individuals with a discreet and reliable means to receive mail, including benefits checks and critical correspondences with social service agencies and potential employers.

The Coalition’s three housing programs – Scattered Site Housing Program, Coalition Houses, and Bridge Building – provided stable, permanent housing to 169 formerly homeless New Yorkers and ensured their health and wellbeing by conducting regular case management check-ins and offering other supports as needed.

The First Step Job Training Program provided job training and case management support to 92 women interested in securing employment in the human services field.

Camp Homeward Bound (CHB) welcomed 222 children to our sleepaway camp in Harriman State Park. CHB’s three, 16-day sessions provided kids living in shelters throughout the city traditional summer camp activities like sports, swimming, art, music, dance, and photography in a nurturing and supportive environment. Bound for Success (BFS) provided after school and summer programming throughout the year for 52 homeless students living in shelter. BFS also distributed high quality computers to nearly 2,500 homeless students in the shelter system through our Homeless Schoolkids Laptop Project.

Over the past year, the Coalition’s Advocacy team redoubled its efforts in our three priority areas: pushing the City to invest in the creation of affordable permanent housing at a scale to meet the vast level of need; ensuring that homeless families and individuals have access to decent, accessible, and appropriate shelter; and ensuring that unsheltered individuals are not criminalized and have access to low- barrier shelters and supportive housing. We continue to serve uniquely as the independent monitor of the vast shelter system administered by the Department of Homeless Services, which includes over 400 shelter facilities, and in the past year alone our shelter monitoring staff made 866 visits to shelters to ensure that homeless New Yorkers are not being denied their legal rights and are receiving the shelter and services to which they are entitled.