Posted on April 24, 2015 by Jacquelyn Simone Faced with a historic homelessness crisis, the City must make full use of every available tool to help the 60,000 men, women and children who are languishing in shelters – and to prevent more people from facing the trauma of homelessness. The New York City Council recently urged the de Blasio administration to do just that, echoing the Coalition’s call for the mayor to allocate 2,500 public housing units per year to homeless families. This is one of the most effective strategies in helping families leave crowded shelters and regain the stability of a permanent home. Although the current administration has taken some steps to combat record homelessness, this is one area in which the mayor has not even matched the commitment of his predecessors: de Blasio has allocated only 750 apartments per year to homeless families leaving shelter, drastically lower than the amount set aside by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. With more homeless families than ever before sleeping in often-squalid shelters, the number of units set aside needs to be equal to or greater than past commitments – certainly not less. An Associated Press article by Jonathan Lemire explains why it is so vital for the mayor to increase the allocation of public housing units and to strengthen homelessness prevention efforts. De Blasio, who has made helping the less fortunate the center of his administration, has said that he will devote more resources to combating the problem but some advocates — and now the council — have suggested that he is not going far enough. The council budget plan includes a call for the administration to designate 2,500 of the approximately 5,000 public housing units that become available each year for homeless families leaving city shelters. Advocates believe the program helps families transition from shelters back into the private housing market, but the de Blasio administration has earmarked only 750 apartments a year for the project, far less than several recent mayors. Additionally, the council is calling on the administration to increase funding into the Court-Based Homelessness Prevention Project, which fights on behalf of families facing eviction in housing court. The program currently can serve an estimated 2,400 cases a year; the council says that an additional $7.5 million in city funding could allow it to serve more than 6,000 at-risk families in a total of ten zip codes throughout New York City. “Providing homeless families with transitional housing will give them a more secure setting to establish stability and rebuild their lives,” City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said Tuesday, “while providing aid to those threatened with eviction can curb one of the most common causes of homelessness.” Some homeless advocates said that de Blasio should match the commitment made by Rudolph Giuliani, who devoted 2,500 New York City Public Housing Authority (NYCHA) units to the formerly homeless. “This mayor should step up,” said Mary Brosnahan, president of the Coalition for the Homeless. “There’s no more important tool the city has in its arsenal to combat homeless than to set aside those NYCHA units.”
