NYC Homelessness Hits All-Time High, as Advocates Blame Gov. Cuomo for Not Following Through on Housing Pledge Posted on August 26, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in New York Daily News A shortage of supportive housing has helped drive homelessness for single adults to record highs, the Coalition for the Homeless says in a new report. The number of single adults living in city shelters hit an all-time high of 14,442 in March, the group found ..Read More
Poverty Drives Homeless Rates? Not So Fast Posted on August 24, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in The Boston Globe Fill in the blank. When the economy collapses, the number of homeless Americans goes ___. While you might expect the answer to be “up,” during the recession of 2007-2009 the number of homeless people in America dropped slightly. Compare homelessness across ..Read More
How Do Rent-Burdened New Yorkers Cope? Posted on August 24, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in The New York Times Housing is generally considered affordable if a household allots no more than 30 percent of its income to home payments and utilities. By that standard, more than half of renters in New York City are “cost-burdened” and may find it hard to pay for other ne ..Read More
Success and Struggles Point to a Better Way to Help NYC’s Chronically Homeless Posted on August 23, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in City Limits For three years, Mark Williams has come home to his own studio apartment in a spacious six-story building on the western edge of Fordham manor. But even now, Williams remembers exactly what it’s like to freeze on the New York City streets in the winter: ..Read More
The Rise and Fall of ‘Clean and Sober’ in Supportive Housing Posted on August 23, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in City Limits New York City’s homeless population is no monolith, and the 2005 NY/NYIII supportive-housing funding agreement explicitly recognized that. Kingsbridge Terrace, a supportive housing facility run by Jericho Project in the Bronx, was in part funded for R ..Read More
Too Rich to Be Poor, Too Poor to Get By Posted on August 22, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in The Wilson Quarterly A line of wilting people snakes across the busy Brooklyn sidewalk. Families cluster beneath a few sparse trees and flatten themselves under narrow awnings, some sinking to the ground, seeking a sliver of shade. Most people have been waiting two to three hours ..Read More
A Bit of Cash Can Keep Someone Off the Streets for 2 Years or More Posted on August 11, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in Science If someone is about to become homeless, giving them a single cash infusion, averaging about $1000, may be enough to keep them off the streets for at least 2 years. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which finds that programs that proactively assist those ..Read More
On Tenant Blacklist, Errors and Renters With Little Recourse Posted on August 16, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in The New York Times After two years of being homeless, napping in stores open all night and more recently staying in a convent in Harlem, Margot Miller found out in March that her luck was about to change: She had qualified for an apartment for low-income older adults. “This is ..Read More
Explosion of Homelessness Predicted for Obama Administration Voucher Plan to Desegregate Low-Income Tenants Posted on August 14, 2016 by Jacquelyn Simone in New York Daily News A well-intentioned Obama administration move to combat segregation of the poor is a recipe for disaster in New York City, a growing chorus of critics says. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to change the way it doles out housing vouche ..Read More
