There’s a Way to Curb Homelessness: Supportive Housing Works, and It’s Affordable — So Gov. Cuomo Should Step Up

As most of us know by now, homelessness in New York City is at near-record levels. Each night, more than 59,000 New Yorkers, including 24,000 children, bed down in homeless shelters. While most homeless families and some homeless individuals simply need an affordable place to call home, the most costly subset of homeless New Yorkers are people coping with mental illness, substance abuse and chronic illnesses that, left unaddressed, will keep them cycling in and out of shelters, hospital beds and institutions.

As costly to taxpayers as these temporary quarters are, a large proportion of people in them quickly wind back up on the street, often without food, medicine or adequate clothing. We can no longer ignore the reality that our current system fosters a brutal cycle that is inhumane, ineffective and far too expensive for taxpayers.

It’s important to understand how we reached this point. In the 1960s, a new generation of psychotropic medications gave many people with serious mental illness the ability to live safely within the community, rather than being confined to psychiatric hospitals. This helped spur the downsizing of large psychiatric centers that once housed over 93,000 New Yorkers.

Thousands of men and women returned to our neighborhoods with the promise of community mental health care and safe housing. Yet most of the housing never materialized.

In response, New Yorkers pioneered supportive housing in the 1980s and expanded it in the 1990s, building 15,000 units under three New York/New York Agreements jointly funded by the city and state. Supportive housing units are not temporary shelters; they are permanent housing with essential support services.

The last agreement, New York/New York III, saw more than 85% of its tenants remain stably housed after a year and successfully reduced chronic homelessness by 47% within five years. Detoxification visits decreased by 82%; hospitalizations decreased by 57%.

In real dollars, each homeless individual moved into supportive housing saves taxpayers more than $10,000, and each homeless patient transferred from hospitalization to supportive housing saves taxpayers nearly $47,000.

Despite these results, which indicate that supportive housing is the best long-term solution with a proven track record of reducing homelessness and saving tax dollars, New York has not yet invested in supportive housing on scale to address our current crisis.

Gov. Cuomo recently acknowledged the scope of homelessness here, saying “it’s hard not to conclude that we have a major homeless problem.” He is right; the numbers have reached tragic levels.

However, as it stands today, our public policy continues the short-term stopgap approach.

In an effort to put an end to our current crisis and the cycle of homelessness for thousands of families, myself and more than 130 colleagues in the state Assembly have called on Cuomo to support the development of 35,000 new units of supportive housing by 2025 — 23,350 units for adults, 10,150 for families and 1,500 for youth.

Joining in that call are state senators from both parties, 250 faith leaders, 300 social service groups and hundreds of homeless people and supportive housing residents.

We are confident Mayor de Blasio will soon come forward with the city’s share. Now the burden is on Cuomo to do his part. Experienced organizations stand ready to build thousands more permanent homes for our homeless veterans and their families, women and children overcoming domestic violence and abuse, people recovering from addictions, and men and women struggling with debilitating mental illnesses.

It is time for New York to embrace this proven long-term solution to our homelessness crisis by creating and adequately funding 35,000 units of supportive housing over the next 10 years.

Hevesi chairs the state Assembly’s committee on social services. Nortz is deputy executive director for policy with the Coalition for the Homeless.

This piece originally appeared in the New York Daily News.