‘Currently only 25 percent of eligible households receive the housing voucher, meaning that nearly everyone in need of aid does not receive it. The impact of fully funding vouchers would be astounding: it would help an estimated 1.1 million households in New York state alone.’
‘The cost is too high not to fund safety modifications to our housing stock. Older adults who can’t afford modifications, such as grab bars or no step entrances, must choose between living in an unsafe home or moving to an institutional setting.’
With the city’s hotel shelter transfers once again imminent, City Limits reached out to nonprofit providers to talk with shelter staff and visit the buildings where the city puts up New Yorkers experiencing homelessness.
New York City lawmakers on Wednesday adopted a new $98.7 billion budget that bolsters a key rental subsidy for homeless residents and restores some funding to social service providers following last year’s cuts.
‘The right to shelter provides unshakeable protections for those who would otherwise have no choice but to sleep on the street. Threats to the right to shelter by New York mayors aren’t new—Both Giuliani and Bloomberg mounted strident challenges to modify and undo it.’
The hiring increase worries some advocates who say the data collectors could erode the crucial trust street homeless New Yorkers develop with nonprofit outreach workers who develop relationships during routine visits.
‘Our state and federal governments have a moral responsibility to go beyond emergency measures and implement systemic, long-term solutions that will direct more public resources to preventing eviction and homelessness.’
‘We did have a major emphasis on affordable housing, and a great deal of spending on it,’ during the de Blasio administration, says Samuel Stein, the report’s author and housing policy analyst for CSS. ‘And yet the problems have persisted.’
‘Stigmatizing and criminalizing homeless people is just another tool the real estate industry uses to maintain status quo and maximize their bottom lines. The stigmatization must stop — we need to end this prejudice and get honest about who is homeless and why.’
A recent analysis of the city’s Certificate of No Harassment pilot says it has been effective in combating some forms of landlord harassment, but that the city could do more to strengthen the program to better protect tenants.