(MSCC) John Mudd, January 18, 2023

INTRODUCTION

It would be great to harness the various interests to develop solutions and plot our way forward toward a better community. We hope the information provided herein will spark further conversations, new development, and partners too.

The information and opinions expressed are gleaned from MSCC’s Homeless and Housing Study, and Solutions Study. This new study draws on all the credible input from the Homeless and Housing meetings—and is the companion piece to the Homeless and Housing Study, published in 2017—which gave us a greater understanding of the problems surrounding homelessness.

Generally and preliminarily speaking, as we are still discovering new information, I see a way forward, that is if the stakeholders are inclined to participate with the development and/or investments within our community.

The problems of homelessness cannot be swept from the landscape by legal means, nor by avoiding social and economic degradations. But it can be hidden with the bandaid solutions such as the often talked about scaffolding, or managed and resolved with the more complex and longterm development of supportive and affordable housing.

The following is an attempt to distill all the information researched, gathered, shared, studied, and discussed, from the most effective band-aid applications to required housing inventory.

MSCC is not interested in bandaids.

BAND-AIDS

In the short term, band-aids can be useful if applied wisely. Moving homeless away from people’s front doors and out of sight is only transferring the problem to someone else’s doorstep. Homeless people have rights and want autonomy, attempting to arrest the problem away and wasting time on restrictive policies are not solutions, but rather, cruel efforts to ignore the problem. 

Even the “better” band-aid solutions may yield community benefits in some cases—such as with the scaffolding issues, which are sore points for communities as they are littered throughout the city for unnecessarily long periods of time—but they do not solve the deep-rooted social problems of homelessness (See Homeless and Housing Study, Sanitation Maintenance, page 51).

Below are a few band-aids (most most talked about) that will make the city healthier, more convenient, comfortable, and pleasurable…

Sanitation Maintenance

Vigilant cleaning is underrated. It also speaks to the idea of shuffling people who are suffering from homelessness to someone else’s doorstep. A solid networking with your BIDS, MTA, sanitation, businesses, precinct, etc., for immediate removal of street debris, and regular cleanings in Midtown, will yield short-term favorable results (See Homeless and Housing Study, Sanitation Maintenance,  page 19).

Scaffolding

Scaffolding legislation is a worthwhile endeavor that can easily gain momentum, as it is a citywide problem (See Homeless and Housing Study, Sanitation Maintenance, page 51). There are efforts to make changes to the permitted use of scaffolds, but the status is unknown. A scaffolding committee could: 

• Research legislative progress
• Gather widespread support from communities, community boards, city councils, and others
• Gather legislative support
• Reach out to Department of Buildings (DOB) for cooperation, knowledge, and support
  • Understand their rules and enforcement needs

Asks: Manpower to do the preliminary steps mentioned above. 

Kiosks

Limiting the service or footprint of kiosks will not be an easy battle, but it’s also not impossible. The kiosk issues erupted during the earliest installs—the abuse and use of the kiosks and sidewalks were discussed during a June 16, 2015 Midtown South Community Council Meeting. Subsequent letters followed (see Addendum A Midtown South Communications), as did letters from CB4, Gale Brewer’s office, Corey Johnson’s office. MOUs were hashed out, and lawsuits were filed (see Addendum B: NYC ITT response to Gael Brewer, September 12, 2016). Efforts were lead to trade out locations. 

We gained some concessions (e.g., limited internet service) to particular kiosks. We’ve had discussions with LinksNYC, DoITT, and they were not totally unreasonable, but they were reluctant due to contractual obligations (probably a good reason to refrain from city and corporate partnerships), and are not likely to make changes unless pressed to do so. There will be considerable pushback, especially when it comes to limiting of services—revenues are derived from the kiosk’s internet usage, and the high-trafficked areas are most important to that revenue stream. They are more likely to exchange locations equal in value. Also, the company responsible for uprooting all the archaic phone booths is in breach of their contract, as they are well beyond their contractual deadline to do so…perhaps a leverage for us to explore?

Keep in mind, social services are heavily searched; limiting internet services may cut off a life line for people in need.

Asks: A committee of several council leaders and community boards (since this is a citywide problem), along with other stakeholders, including the kiosk vendors, and legal, to find solutions. 

Public Bathroom Facilities

Public bathrooms and automatic public toilets (APTs) are on the Homeless and Housing Committee’s action list. Allen Oster, CB4; Julie Chou, Renee Kinsella, CB5; Luke Szabados, CB5; Boyeong Hong; Kevin Gurly; Joseph Greeley, CB5; Mo George; John Mudd, MSCC met in September 2019 and elected to draft a mini-proposal for more support and buy-in. 

There is a need for public toilets that will be highlighted in the proposal with proven models that have made urban cultures a more viable, sane, and humane place. The proposal will highlight various options and locations for public bathrooms.

Asks: TBD

CORE ACTIONS

The Homeless and Housing Committee adopted eight Core Actions (Communication, Networks, Programs, Services, Pipelines, Policy Reform, Oversight/Prevention, and Housing) to pursue, with expected smaller actions to naturally find resolve within the framework of larger actions. They are listed in their natural order of development, or how they came about.

Communication

MSCC’s Homeless and Housing meetings are positive examples of  “Communication.” Communication nurtures the development of ideas, action plans, task lists, networks, and highlights problem spots. 

Communication among elected officials, communities, city agencies, nonprofits, businesses personnel, and others, is critical for cooperative widespread support and to achieve success in separate and mutual aims. Strong communication educates, informs, and empowers by:

• Eliminating the Silo Affect
• Developing relationships between vendors and providers
• Developing relationships between providers and clients
• Building trust and confidence
• Including others in the process
• Bringing in new ideas and new supporters to the cause

There are many agencies, non-profits, and people working tirelessly on the homeless issue: There is no need to be alone in the battle…there is power in numbers. Communication brings people and groups together to create synergy. The committee’s Communication action includes:

• Alerting one another
• Developing strategies
• Educating one another
• Sharing ideas and supporting one another

The importance of our committee’s communication may not be so easily quantifiable, but the relevance cannot be denied when you have representatives from various nonprofits, city and state governing bodies, city councils, city agencies, the NYPD, the medical profession, the community, and more sitting together to support one another and discuss ways to resolve our homeless issue.

Ask: A conference room to host and participants to fill it; efforts to maintain an active agenda and allow for input and discovery.

Networks

The Homeless and Housing Committee’s networks are the result of pro-active participants working, communicating, and advocating together: participants include, but are not limited to, support groups, associates, peers, medical and social professionals, nonprofit groups, homeless services, volunteers, lawmakers, city officials, city agencies, community groups, BIDS, entrepreneurs, business operators, concerned citizens, the police department, lawyers, church organizations, etc.…

There is great value in the communication and networks. The Homeless and Housing Committee forums allow members to develop relationships, share knowledge, craft programs, find resources, discover problems, and resolve issues toward shared goals—this will be the catalyst for progressive change.

It’s incumbent upon the Homeless and Housing Committee to invite others to share their experiences and expertise to expand our network, continue educating, and discover solutions. With knowledge and determination in abundance, solutions are forthcoming. 

Ask: Continued hosting, participants, participation, agenda and action development, followed by monitoring and detailed summations. To keep in mind: Organizing, communicating, and summarizing takes time and volunteers can feel stretched thin. Some minor funding is needed.

Street Sheets

The Street Sheets pamphlet is a basic marketing tool, offering a variety of services to people with a variety of conditions (see “Pipelines” section, Category of Conditions). The contacts (beacons of hope) listed within the Street Sheets need to help deliver accurate and responsible services from requesting client for network credibility and trust. The Street Sheets can only be as responsive and effective as their listed networks and resources. 

Street Sheets (described above and in the Homeless and Housing Study, pg. 54) was completed 2020. Vetting the information to ensure we have the best partners listed to serve our public interests requires regular maintenance (available on request). 

Side note: A similar sheet containing Empowerment Workshops is under consideration.

The resources on the pages within the Street Sheet pamphlet should be considered as a Community of Care.

Ask: Vetting of content to ensure accuracy, user-friendliness, and effectiveness; the printing of bulk handouts in quantities sufficient to allow information to stay current through its wide use; the broad promotion and distribution of pamphlets within the community. Future updating and coordinating of information may require management. Additional funding is needed.

Programs and Services

Nearest to the most important of our core actions—stable housing—to end homelessness are programs and services, which effectively advance people’s health, welfare, and personal development, such as:

• Empowerment Workshops: money management, navigating the shelter system, etc.
• Supportive Services: community engagement groups (e.g. Community of Care), laundry service (Laundry for Kids), Healthy Meals, etc.
• Health, and social services: aging, addiction, dental, mental, medical, disease, financial, housing stability, etc. 

Who are the most efficient, midtown-focused partners best to advance the people’s interest? I suspect they are within our network. But we always need more.  Efforts will be well spent finding the widest possible network of providers, and also to support providers to serve effectively through structural, funding, or inventory deficiencies.

Asks: Support, input, participation, funding, all are needed.

Empowerment Workshops

Workshops should be cleverly constructed and serve to empower, provide tools for growth, and inspire action from participants to want to plot a path out of their precarious situations. Workshops should provide relief, enjoyment, and community support for families struggling economically. Providing easy access for children and parents to these events is paramount.

Pastor Tiffany Henkel and Rev. Lesley-Ann Hix Tommy from Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries; Josephine Ismon, Education Council NYC District 2 and Midtown South Community Council’s (MSCC) Director of Youth, Education, & Human Rights; MSCC’s Sharon Jasprizza, Community Service Director, and John Mudd, President; Judy Gross, Director of Literacy and Math Programs, Marlene Meyerson, JCC Manhattan; Charisma White; Gabra Zackman; and others, have created a list of existing, needed, and developing workshop programs, to empower those who are struggling emotionally and economically. The committee selected and conducted four workshops for 2019 and plans to expand upon them next year.

Asks: Funding is needed for the workshops.

Supportive Services

Community of Care (mentioned above as an example of supportive services) is a surrogate family advocacy program for those who lack family support. The hands on support team can be composed of professionals, non-professionals, services, social workers, networks, and others, who interact with and have the client’s best interests at heart.

Asks: Not certain what the support “ask” is with this program outside of the social and Homeless and Housing network. This needs more exploration. 

Health and Social Services

Individuals need empowerment, support, and health and social services for improved quality of life—these essentials are important while navigating through the convoluted health, housing, and social process.

Shelters should have access to health and social services (social workers, placement counselors, etc.) and basic services (bathrooms, showers, etc.) on site. 

Non-Medical or Respite Beds are provided by congregations, community facilities, and nonprofits which are operated by volunteers and without on-site health professionals. People living on the streets, traveling through the shelter system and looking to find a place to call home, depend on caring, proactive, and efficient health and social services.

Medical Respite Beds do not exist in NYC, at least not like the Barbara McInnes House in Boston (see Addendum C). The closest example is the Comunilife program, where rooms are rented by hospitals to give patients needed extended recovery time. Comunilife has served as a pipeline to stable housing (see Homeless and Housing Committee’s September 3, 2019 recap).

Hospital Beds: The Homeless and Housing Committee recognized early on that hospitals present an advantage in helping people leave their homeless conditions behind. Proper time to rest and heal is conducive to sobriety and better clarity and may lead to more cooperation with social services. This is clearly supported by Alejandro Medina’s two separate Mount Sinai hospital visit—with two very different outcomes (see Homeless and Housing Study’s Hospital Advantage, page 36).

Andy Coyle, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine and Medical Education, Associate Program Director for Ambulatory Care, Internal Medicine Residency Program, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, at East 98th Street, NYC, spoke to members of our committee about Mt. Sinai’s respite bed, and ER care policies concerning the homeless.

Dr. Coyle explained that health care does not include housing or homeless services, but systems are merging and coordination is improving to yield better results. Mt. Sinai has a contract with Communilife in the Bronx to provide three beds in a four-bedroom apartment to help homeless patients recover. Stable housing, proactive care, and health services reduces hospital and emergency room costs.

Dr. Coyle’s study further highlights:

• 2-5% of people are kept hospitalized because they cannot be safely discharged when they have no home
• 22% are readmitted after 30 days upon release
• Respite beds decrease hospital re-admittance rates

Additional details of that conversation will soon be published in our October 1, 2019 meeting recap.

The committee’s consensus: Medical Respite Beds (emergency aftercare and pipeline to stable housing) are needed. Representatives visiting Boston’s Barbara McInnes House further affirm this belief. More information to be detailed in the October 1, and November 5, 2019 recap. 

Asks: Support the development of Triage Teams to include outreach workers, DHS, hospitals, psychiatrists, and other associated services to assist in removing individuals from the street, and follow-through to provide further support until stability is achieved. Support and advocate for the development of Medical Respite Beds, and imbedded social workers within hospitals.

Pipelines

Pipelines are developed between the services, city agencies, and client. Efficiency depends on structured systems of response and inventory. From the various pipelines to the end goal of housing stability, the pathway must be clean and unhindered. Although pipelines may provide overlapping services, they should primarily adhere to the Categories of Conditions (below). 

Understanding a person’s current financial, emotional, mental, and medical instability is important to providing the right pipeline of services. To serve our clients well, there is a need to know them as people, and not just as “homeless.”

The Categories of Conditions 

The Homeless and Housing Committee categorizes the varying homeless or nearly homeless conditions below:

• Families
• Youths 
• LGBTQ
• Elderly
• Veterans
• Justice System
• HIV/AIDS
• Health Crisis
• Co-Occurring Disorders
• Nearly Homeless
• Low Income Tenants (rent controlled and stabilized)

A homeless or nearly homeless person under their prescribed category will benefit in accordance to their pipeline’s development and implementation. System and structural obstacles or failures, along with lack of inventory, care facilities (social and medical) must be managed to advance people’s progress. This requires social networks, city agencies, and others to develop planning and budgeting to support.

Asks: Support, advocacy, developmental ideas, non-profit financial support, etc. 

Policy Reforms

Policies and Oversight go hand in hand, but are discussed here separately.

After communicating with various nonprofits, city agencies, and others, one of the clearer understandings is that inconsistent and incongruent policies exists among the various agencies, nonprofits, and others offering health, housing, and social services, adding obstacles to client service. 

Non Medical Respite Bed Policy: Conflicting policies between congregations (providers of respite beds) and homeless outreach services (client services) were highlighted during the DHS and ESN January 2019 quarterly meeting, which discussed the lack of overnight respite bed usage among the congregations. The lack of coherent policies and stringent rules prevented homeless services from filling respite beds. 

The committee, with the help of homeless services and the shelter network (NYDIS/ESN) are developing coherent policy recommendations for a more cooperative working relationship.

Vouchers: Nicole Myan, formerly with Support for the Underserved, SUS, points out that, “in order to get most housing vouchers, people need to actually become homeless and be in shelter for at least a day.” Once you lose housing, there is no getting it back, people become “homeless,” put into the system, and become case loads. Nicole suggests “looking at policies around vouchers and lowering the threshold on how to obtain one to include people who are tenuously housed or at risk of homelessness potentially even before the eviction process begins.”

Asks: Non-determined outside of draft development and participants’ agreement.

Oversight/Prevention

Oversight is the overarching captain of the ship, and is needed with every action. Oversight and prevention are inherent along with efficient policy and procedures, but is often lacking in some private care facilities where profit outweighs care. 

Effective oversight and Quality of Assurance ensures quality of care so people remain secure within their place of residency. Existing agencies (DHCR, Tenants Associations, Adult Protective Services, Justice Department, Health Department, etc.) must be supported and empowered by strict standards of care so people can thrive and be protected in their current homes without stress. Agency empowerment comes from having effective laws, rules and regulations, workforce, and programing.

Eviction Protection and other preventative measures: NYC Home Base program (see Preventative Measure, under Long Term Actions within the Homeless and Housing Study, page 43) is an effort to keep people in their homes, but the processes are often complicated for troubled individuals and may seem monumental without strong support. 

NYC Home Base and other similar programs, along with legal assistance must be supported, and their effectiveness, oversight, and prevention need to be monitored.

Discriminatory Practices: There is much discussion regarding voucher policies, as there is with discriminatory practices. Nicole further explains:

When homeless individuals do get housing vouchers, it is extremely difficult for them to find landlords who are willing to accept them. This means we could, and do, have a significant number of people in shelter who are approved for vouchers and looking for housing but cannot find anything because the landlords won’t accept them due to their voucher. This is an illegal practice in NYC but landlords come up with various reasons why people are not approved or will put the rent slightly above what the voucher will pay just so they do not have to take the voucher.

This has been confirmed by other groups and is being discussed. This problem has not escaped the Department of Social Services (DSS)—they’ve consolidated the voucher system to address particular issues.

Can the battle be won when need overwhelms resources? That question speaks to the affordability in the housing market and economical structures within society.

Housing

Urban planning fails in community building:

The over-saturation of hotels in our city is death to our communities. Look no further than 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, from W. 35 to 40th Streets. The tenement buildings, which serve low- to moderate-income wage earners, are disappearing. The Midtown area was never known to be heavily residential, and less so today (see population by consensus tracts on NYTimes poverty map). —The Homeless and Urban Planning Connection, 9/11/19

Preservation of affordable rents dismally follows in the urban planning tracks. 

New York rents have been skyrocketing for decades, far faster than the overall rate of inflation, and the median monthly rent is now $3,355 in Manhattan, $2,841 in Brooklyn, and $2,819 in Queens. Even in the lowest-rent neighborhoods of the city – all in the Bronx – rents are often $1,500 – $1,600 per month. The “rent is too damn high” is not just a cathartic rallying cry. It is a reality that fuels the twin crises of homelessness and food insecurity in our city.—citylimits.org, CityViews: De Blasio Can Fulfill his Progressive Promise by Retooling his Housing Plan, Joel Berg, Giselle Routhier, 9.17.18

The failure to consider social crises and economic disparities in our urban world is on display in our shelters and our streets. 

…New York City is home to about 70 billionaires and 389,000 millionaires, it is also a city where approximately 1.1 million people still can’t afford all the food they need; a city where 130,000 men, women and children were relegated to sleeping in shelters last year; a city where thousands still live, and too often die, on our streets. —citylimits.org, CityViews: De Blasio Can Fulfill his Progressive Promise by Retooling his Housing Plan, Joel Berg, Giselle Routhier, 9.17.18

In New York City, the issues of homelessness and affordable housing are intertwined. Shelter use is at an all-time high: in the single adult system the average daily census has increased 33% over the last three years and length of stay has risen 20%. A major contributing factor to this situation is the inadequate supply of housing options affordable to extremely low-income individuals. For our clients, and our City, the consequences [of limited affordable housing options] have been devastating. Data from the Mayor’s Management Report show fewer exits, longer stays and higher rates of recidivism. —The Homeless and Urban Planning Connection, 9/11/19

According to the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) 2019 “Point in Time” data, 74,982 people were counted throughout the shelter systems (DHS, HPD, DYCD, HRA-DV, HRA-HASA, safe havens, stabilization beds). Combine that with the people residing on the streets (est. 3,500), couch surfing, sleeping in cars, and overstaying in hospitals, those numbers are closer to 80,000 people unstably housed.

Persuading others to rethink our landscape is one of our more challenging core actions. Encouraging and incentivizing residential communities, protecting rent-stabilized and rent-controlled housing, and halting hotel skyscrapers from further taking over our landscape is a must for a sustainable future in our city. 

Undoubtedly, the need for various housing options, with an emphasis on affordable, supportive, and housing first models would satisfy aforementioned core actions and goals. And there is enough reasoning to make housing a purposeful goal of any governing administration (described in the Homeless and Housing Study starting on page 61).

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s policies are certainly more progressive than the two previous administrations combined, but with reluctance to attack the problem properly, and with the deepening economic divide, we’re in a proverbial black hole.

The approximately 62,000 NYC citizens living in shelters and its estimated growth of 5,000 by 2022, casts light on the inventory needed to overcome homelessness.

To address the housing needs of our homeless neighbors, the House Our Future NY Campaign, formed by the Coalition and 66 partner organizations, urges Mayor de Blasio to create 24,000 apartments through new construction (about 20 percent of all planned new construction in Housing New York 2.0) and preserve at least 6,000 more units for a total of 30,000 apartments for homeless New Yorkers. —Gotham Gazette, Rafael Salamanca Jr., Giselle Routhier’s, To End the Homelessness Crisis It’s Time to Refocus the City’s Housing Plan – Here’s How, October 18, 2019

In total, more than 39 elected officials, 68 organizations, & thousands of NYers have signed on to #HouseOurFutureNY campaign since Jan 2018. The only person we’re missing is @NYCMayor. —Coalition for the Homeless, House Our Future email reminder, 10.31.19

Fortunately there are plenty of partners within our network such as The Doe Fund, Breaking Ground, Urban Pathways, SUS, Coalition for the Homeless, Interfaith Assembly on Homeless and Housing, and others, who are developing and advocating for affordable housing.

SUMMARY

Expanding our network, discovering solutions, and plotting a path toward resolve are in the best interest of all. The full impact of the destructive policies in our urban ecosystem—as in nature’s ecosystem—are yet to be felt. Look yonder to California, Seattle, and Washington DC with a critical eye to our city.

To prevent and end homelessness, we all need to be attentive to changes in affordability in rental markets—both nationally and in our own communities. And, if we’re attentive right now, we can see that things have been getting worse. —United States Interagency Council on Homelessness

This is not pie-in-the-sky. In 1938, Mayor La Guardia built public housing, in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Rockefeller, Lindsay, Republicans created the Mitchell-Lama housing program, [Ed] Koch gave back the vacant apartments to community-based organizations and built the low-income housing in the ‘80s. —Scott Stringer, NYC Comptroller, speaking at a House Our Future rally, 10.30.19

Adding affordable housing, supportive housing with its wrap-around social services, medical respite beds, respite beds, along with clean efficient pipelines to get there, from outreach and providers to health services, is the humane thing to do.

Asks: Supporting housing actions to meet the housing crisis to end the homeless crisis.