The Coalition for the Homeless is the nation’s oldest advocacy and direct service organization helping homeless individuals and families. We believe that affordable housing, sufficient food and the chance to work for a living wage are fundamental rights in a civilized society. Since our inception in 1981, the Coalition has worked through litigation, public education and direct services to ensure that these goals are realized.
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 over 1,000 meals per night at 22 street locations around Manhattan and the Bronx, totaling nearly 400,000 meals over the course of the year. We also continued to distribute other critical items including clothing, sleeping bags, toiletry kits, and gift cards for emergency essentials.
The Eviction Prevention Program saved 829 households from becoming homeless by providing one- time rental arrears grants. The Crisis Intervention Program helped more than 10,000 individuals access safe, appropriate shelter, secure benefits and entitlements, and receive referrals to legal and mental health services. The Keys Program helped 104 chronically homeless individuals with physical disabilities or mental illness to secure government benefits and obtain supportive housing, and the Emergency Mail Program provided more than 1,000 homeless individuals at any given point in time with a discreet and reliable means to receive mail, including benefits checks and critical correspondence 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 153 formerly homeless New Yorkers and ensured their health and well-being 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 135 women interested in securing employment in the human services field.
Camp Homeward Bound (CHB) welcomed 315 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 82 homeless students living in shelters.
The Coalition’s Advocacy team has remained focused on our three priority areas: pushing for the creation of more affordable permanent housing for those who need it most; 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 continued in our unique role as the independent monitor of the municipal shelter system, deploying our team of shelter specialists to the more than 500 shelter facilities throughout NYC to protect the legal rights of homeless individuals and families.
While already upholding these priorities, the rapid influx of asylum seekers and other new arrivals since mid-2022 has created conditions that have dominated much of our advocacy agenda. New York’s fundamental Right to Shelter is currently under attack by the City, and the Coalition – with its lawyers at The Legal Aid Society and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison – is working around the clock to defend that right to ensure that people without homes are not relegated to bed down on city streets.
Note: The charts above net out unrelated business expenses and revenue.
Download the CFH Financial Statement for the Year Ending June 30, 2024 (PDF).
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