City Limits’ series on family homelessness in New York City is supported by Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York and The Family Homelessness Coalition. City Limits is solely responsible for the content and editorial direction.
Advocates and providers say many more families need intensive ongoing support to avoid a return to shelter amid an historic homelessness crisis — even before the COVID-19 outbreak forced thousands of low-income breadwinners out of work.
‘HSS would ensure that our state’s most vulnerable residents can continue to afford rent and remain in secure homes in these uncertain times and even after the current eviction moratorium ends.’
Nearly 900,000 families may have received ‘one-shot deals’ from the city over the past decade, but chances are only those who had an attorney—as well as a check—avoided eviction.
Home Stability Support has the support of tenants’ rights advocates and the landlord lobby, but there’s a major snag: Gov. Andrew Cuomo has resisted it.
When Mayor de Blasio in 2017 announced a plan to end the use of hotels as homeless shelters by 2023, there were about 7,500 homeless people in hotel rooms paid for by the city. Today, there are 11,750.
Parents account for the majority of homeless unaccompanied New Yorkers under age 25, according to city data,
Policymakers and most everyday New Yorkers have yet to come face-to-face with the extent of the crisis, even as mass instability takes a lasting toll on individual lives and social networks in the city.
Landlords that wanted to raise rents are falling behind. Housing Works employees are unhappy with their working conditions. And tenants put their landlords on trial.
‘For the first time in a decade, the DHS shelter census is flat and actually trending downward,’ Steven Banks, the commissioner of the Department of Social Services, told the Max & Murphy Show.
‘The governor and state legislature now have the opportunity to do something to help the people most at risk of homelessness.’