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“Federal leaders are shifting funding toward shelters and outdated programs that make housing conditional on sobriety. For people trying to rebuild their lives, it can mean the difference between having the stability to recover and falling back into crisis.”
I am 10 years clean from substance use this summer. People hear that milestone and ask me how I did it. They expect me to talk about determination, faith, or making better choices. While recovery demanded every one of them, it also hinged on being given the stability and support I needed to change.
The program that saved my life happened to be temporary housing with supportive services, because that’s what I needed at that moment. Others need permanent supportive housing—affordable housing with access to supportive services. What matters is that people can access the kind of housing and services that match where they are in their recovery.
Today, that flexibility is increasingly under threat, putting thousands of New Yorkers at risk. When programs that combine stable housing with supportive services lose funding, people don’t simply lose an apartment. They risk losing access to counseling, treatment, and the support systems that keep them healthy and housed—putting them at risk of returning to shelters, hospitals, or the streets.
Instead of continuing to prioritize programs that focus on quickly getting vulnerable neighbors into safe temporary and permanent housing paired with supportive services (commonly known as “Housing First”), federal leaders are shifting funding toward shelters and outdated programs that make housing conditional on sobriety. For people trying to rebuild their lives, it can mean the difference between having the stability to recover and falling back into crisis. Studies show that Housing First programs decreased homelessness by 88 percent and improved housing stability by 41 percent.
But I don’t need data to prove whether these kinds of programs work. I’m alive because they did.
I grew up in Brooklyn during the crack epidemic. Addiction was everywhere. Like a lot of young people, I spent years looking for somewhere I felt like I belonged. I found that belonging in all the wrong places. By the time I was an adult, addiction had completely taken over my life. I cycled through treatment programs, spent time incarcerated, and wandered the streets.
I had tried to get clean before—and I knew I couldn’t do it alone. Someone told me about Services for the UnderServed. When I entered one of their facilities, the staff didn’t promise they could fix my life. They gave me a roadmap. They told me they would walk beside me, giving me the tools I needed to build skills to live independently, but I had to do the work myself.
Too many people hear about supportive housing and assume they’re simply an empty apartment or a handout. Neither is true.
Supportive housing gave me far more than a place to sleep. For the first time in years, I had a routine. I could wake up knowing where I’d sleep that night. I could show up for counseling. I could start thinking about tomorrow instead of just surviving today.
I was able to find stability after years of chaos. I was connected with addiction treatment, counseling, and people who understood recovery because they had lived it themselves. It gave me the space to focus on healing instead of survival. I could finally start rebuilding my life.
A decade later, I now work at the facility where I was first treated. Every day I see people taking those first difficult steps because someone gave them the same chance I received. Many arrive carrying years of addiction, trauma, and shame. Some have convinced themselves they’ll never change because the world has told them that for years.
When you’ve lived on both sides of community-based care programs—as someone who needed it and someone who now works inside it—you learn what actually changes lives.
That’s why it worries me when policymakers debate different housing models as if one approach works for everyone. Some people need transitional housing. Others need permanent supportive housing. What people need most is access to the program that gives them the best chance to recover.
I understand the desire to help people become self-sufficient. More than anything, I wanted that for myself. But self-sufficiency or “pulling yourself up by the boot-straps” isn’t something that just happens overnight. It grows from stability. Before I could hold down a job, I needed a safe place to sleep. Before I could contribute to my community, I needed treatment, counseling, and people who believed I could succeed. That investment gave me the foundation to become truly independent.
We spend plenty of time talking about the costs of homelessness—the emergency rooms, shelters, jails, and encampments. We spend far less time talking about what communities gain when people have the housing and support they need to recover and thrive.
These programs give people the opportunity to become parents who are present for their children, neighbors who contribute to their communities, and, sometimes, staff members who return to help the next person walking through the door.
Today, I’m one of those people. I show up for my daughters’ school events. I’m the person my kids call when they need advice or support. And every day, I go to work at the same organization that helped save my life, helping others believe recovery is possible.
I know my story isn’t unique because I see it beginning again every day. I work alongside people who are taking the same first difficult steps I once did, and I know what can happen when they’re given the same chance I received.
Especially as the federal government funding becomes less stable, local policy matters more than ever. That’s why I’m encouraged by New York City’s “Block by Block” housing plan, which recognizes that solving homelessness requires not only building more housing of all types, but also creating more supportive housing and connecting people with the services they need to stay housed.
It’s an important step in the right direction. At a time when federal leaders are pulling back from longstanding investments in supportive housing and reshaping homelessness policy, New York cannot afford to retreat.
Ten years ago, supportive housing programs invested in me before I believed I was worth investing in. We can’t afford to stop believing in it now.
Lavon Turner is a former client and current employee at Services for the UnderServed.