(THE CITY)  JOSEFA VELASQUEZ, February 13, 2022

Most families rejected from homeless shelters did not get a full required review of their housing histories before being deemed ineligible, a new audit from City Comptroller Brad Lander finds — including one who’d applied 38 times.

In all, the Department of Homeless Services tossed 42% of 46,200 family applications between January 2019 and mid-March 2020, the audit found, in a process that begins at the Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) intake center on East 151st Street in The Bronx. 

THE CITY reported last week that rejections have since swelled, with three in four applications disqualified.

The comptroller’s office completed the audit in 2021, under Lander’s predecessor, Scott Stringer. In a sample pool of 50 pre-pandemic cases, the Department of Homeless Services declared 33 ineligible due to “non-cooperation” and “did not adequately attempt to assist” 21 of them with efforts to obtain information about where they lived previously, a crucial part of the application.

Those 21 families averaged more than 15 applications each, the audit found, and the majority were ultimately deemed eligible. Of all the applications DHS received during the audit period, 68% were from people who had already been rejected and tried again.

“There is a significant risk that families were delayed or denied temporary housing assistance for which they may have been eligible,” the audit stated noting also that “In some cases, DHS conducted no investigations before deeming the applicant families ineligible for non-cooperation.

Said Lander in a statement provided to THE CITY: “Families seeking shelter should not have to face homelessness and be subjected to a revolving door of denials due to the failure of PATH intake personnel to run an online search.”

Source: The City