Times Up PTH Report

8/14/2019 Times Up PTH Report

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Picture the Homeless

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Homeless New Yorkers Demand Alternativesto Bloomberg's Failed Five-Year PlanTIMES UPTIMES UP

A R E P O R T B Y

PICTURE THE HOMELESS

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HSP is a program thathas been designed to createfailure. From experience,

I can say that this program isnegligent in their responsibilitiesand reckless in their handlingof finances. Due to thismismanagement, I have becomehomeless againafter beingon HSP for thirty months.

--ABDUL SABUR, PICTURE THE HOMELESS



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I: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

II. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

III. ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

IV: CONTEXT, DATA COLLECTION AND METHODOLOGY . . . 9

V. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

VI. FINDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

VII. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . 20

VIII: SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

CONTENTS

3A PICTURE THE HOMELESS REPORT



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More people are living in homeless sheltersnow than when Mayor Bloomberg tookoffice in 2002. On June 24th, 2004, Mayor

Michael Bloomberg unveiled his Five Year Plan toreduce homelessness in New York City by two-thirds.The failure of Bloomberg's plan is evidence that what isneeded are fundamental changes to housing policy inNYC, which is at the root of what is falsely portrayed asa homeless crisis.

New York Magazine has said that his homeless poli-cies are the single biggest failure of the Bloombergadministration.I The 2009 Mayors Management Reportfound an across-the-board increase in the shelter cen-sus. As the five years of Bloomberg's plan comes to aclose, this report focuses on the failures of one of its cor-

nerstones, the Rental Subsidies Programs. Family andchild homelessness have increased under these pro-grams, even with thousands of households receivingvouchers, the rental subsidies have built-in obstacles toemployment and self-sufficiency so crucial to making thetransition out of the shelter system possible.

THE ADMINISTRATION'S RENTAL SUBSIDIESHARM THE HOMELESSPicture the Homeless conducted in-depth, face to face inter-views with 500 homeless New Yorkers over an 18 monthperiod, interviewed landlords and shelter providers, andcollected ethnographic evidence.We found that the currentrental subsidy programs are not viable avenues to reducing

homelessness or sustaining housing. Key findings include:69% of respondents had been to housing courtbecause of a subsidy-related issue. Instead of enablinghomeless people to attain housing stability, these sub-sidies create a whole new nightmare for people exit-ing the city's shelter system.

41% of respondents were in rent arrearsbecause of the city's failure to pay its portion

of their rent, with an average debt of $3,000.City agency ineptitude puts homeless people at riskof eviction and return to the shelters.

While 84% are currently unemployed, 71% saidthey were mentally and physically capable ofworking. Far from being a helpless community inneed of expensive services,homeless families are keptin poverty by a lack of living-wage-paying jobs andexcessive rents.

NEW HOMELESS POLICIES CONTINUETHIS TRACK RECORD OF FAILUREOn May 9,2009, homeless shelter residents with jobsreceived word that they were now expected to pay up to

50% of their income in rent. This policy inexplicably onlyapplied to homeless families with children.II After twoweeks of bad press and massive outcry from homelesspeople, shelter staff, and some elected officials, the Cityannounced that technical issues had forced them to stopthe policyIII. On June 4, NYC papers reported that theDepartment of Homeless Services was putting homelessfamilies up in vacant luxury condosIV; one week later, in theface of headlines like Luxury Lunacy,Bloomberg told thepress We want to move them out.V

To fix these flawed programs and create effectiveavenues for homeless folks to gain housing and keep it,werecommend the following policy changes that are immedi-ately actionable.

CREATE A RENTAL SUBSIDY THAT WORKSFOR ALL HOMELESS NEW YORKERSThe Advantage subsidies introduced in 2007 compriseda dizzying array of five different homeless sub-popula-tionsand they still leave out massive numbers of home-less people.Without a subsidy that works for all homelesspeople, our city's homeless policies will continue to behaphazard, expensive, and ineffective.

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I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

"I was pregnant when I went into the apartment Ifound with my HSP voucher. First thing, half of the

bathroom ceiling fell in. Then all the ceilings caved in.They were repaired a month later, but last week theceiling caved in again, and had to be repaired again."

-- GLORIA,PICTURE THE HOMELESS



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HRA MUST ISSUE A MORATORIUMON STOP-PAYMENT NOTICES.Current welfare policies result in the regularissuance of stop-payment notices for tempo-rary case closures, which lead to nearly half ofthe city's subsidy recipients getting into rentarrears. Since 92% of sanctions are reversedupon appeal generally due to caseworkererror - a failsafe mechanism must be put intoplace to ensure that payments continue untilfinal review of the sanction.

NEW YORK CITY MUST ISSUE A MONTHLYLETTER TO SUBSIDY HOLDERS RELAYINGTHE STATUS OF THEIR SUBSIDYFor many rental subsidy tenants, an evictionnotice is their first notification that HRA hasstopped paying their rent. The city must pro-vide subsidy holders with monthly documenta-tion of the status of their subsidy, in order toprevent folks from becoming homeless again.

HOUSING, NOT SHELTER!It makes no sense to pay over $3,000 a monthfor a shelter room that doesn't have a bath-room or cooking facility, but to pay less than$1,000 per month for an apartment as is thecurrent practice. If the city's policy really was toassist homeless folks to move from shelter to

housing, that's where the city's resourceswould be spent.

Finally, homelessness must be ended, notmanaged. Homelessness is evidence of thetremendous harm caused to communities ofcolor in extreme poverty by community devel-opment practices that privilege some sectors ofthe community over others. Democracyrequires that all members of the communityhave a voice and a stake in the outcome ofpolicies and practices.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG'SFIVE-YEAR-PLAN IS A FAILURE

Five years after Mayor Bloomberg gave himselfthe goal of reducing homelessness by two-thirds in five years, the city's own statisticsreveal the extent of its failure. As these graphsdemonstrate, Bloomberg has failed in his goalof reducing the family shelter population.


MYTH vs REALITYProjected vs Actual Change in the

Single Adult Homeless Shelter Population

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

BaselineFYO4Actuals

Year 2Year 1 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5

Black Line = Projected DeclineGreen Line = Actual Change

MYTH vs REALITYProjected vs Actual Change in the

Homeless Sheltered Family Population

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

BaselineFYO4Actuals

Year 2Year 1 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5

Black Line = Projected Decline

Green Line = Actual Change



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This report was prepared jointly by Jamie K.McCallum at the Graduate Center, CityUniversity of New York, with Linda Contes, Lynn

Lewis and Sam J. Miller at Picture the Homeless.Additional support was provided by Peter Frase andRachel Swaner. Nikita Price, former Rental Subsidiescampaign organizer and a graduate of the first roundof the Picture the Homeless organizer trainee pro-gram, was key to the success of this project.

Nikita was one of the earliest recipients of a rentalsubsidy as a shelter resident and single father. Hebecame an expert in all of the program flaws of thefirst subsidy, Housing Stability Plus. Having personallyconfronted the lack of a transfer process from HSP toWork Advantage when he secured employment with

Picture the Homeless proof of a major flaw in theprogram itselfhis organizing skills enabled him totranslate his individual and anecdotal experiences intoan investigation of systemic breakdowns. His abilityto build relationships with case workers within thesystem, and his unwillingness to compromise the dig-nity of Campaign members when confronted with thepaternalism of the Bloomberg Administration, provid-ed the backdrop to our ability to get these interviews.

Campaign leaders such as Sophia Bryant, DeloresWilliams, Carlos Rosario, Abdul Sabur, Farida Hughes,and Linda Contes also made significant contributionsto the development of the Rental Subsidies campaign,to force the Department of Homeless Services to make

changes in the voucher programsfor themselves aswell as the thousands of other homeless householdscaught up in the system. Their personal experienceswere invaluable in the formation of the survey ques-tions, as well as in conducting interviews and dataanalysis. Their commitment inspired Emmaia Gelman,at the time a recent MIT graduate, to craft a databaseand train members on data entry in 2007, so as toenter surveys regarding the Housing Stability Plus pro-gram, which in turn helped improve the survey ques-tions and interview techniques.

Time's Up marks the culmination of four years ofwork by the Rental Subsidies Campaign at Picture theHomeless. Other campaign leaders included Lenora

Johnson, Ayesha Rahman, Maria Walles, Manny Contes,Hugh Pressley, Tamela Pacheco, Faizal Baksh, RichardCorley, Michael Garrett, Lisa Davall, Sandra Sage,Nakimuli Francis, Dan Taylor, Katrina Williams, William S.Burnett, Leroy Parker, Willis Garner, and Ryan Gibbs. Inaddition to risking retaliation for exposing cracks in the

Rental Subsidies Voucher Program, leaders who investedtime and skills into this Campaign were also facing thesame challenges outlined in this report, including evic-

II. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACSAdministration for Childrens Services(New York City).

DHSDepartment of Homeless Services(New York City).

EAUEmergency Assistance Unit; notorious central

intake center for homeless families with childrenseeking shelter. Closed in 2006.

Home Base. A central component of MayorBloomberg's Five Year Plan, HomeBase was intendedto provide prevention services such as back-rentpayments and family counseling, so at-risk house-holds would not need to apply for shelter.

HRAHuman Resources Administration(New York City).

HSPHousing Stability Plus, the city rental subsidyfor homeless shelter residents from 2004 to 2007;funded with city, state, and federal money.

OTDAOffice of Temporary and Disability

Assistance (New York State).PAPublic Assistance.

PATHPrevention Assistance and TemporaryHousing; the family intake center that replaced theEAU in 2006, located in the Bronx.

Shelter Industrial Complex. New York City's mas-sive network of city-funded homeless shelters, where35,000+ people are warehoused at any givenmoment, at a cost of over $750 million every year.Thousands of jobs depend on this complex,mirroringthe prison system by creating jobs through otherpeople's oppression.

TANFTemporary Aid to Needy Families

(US Federal Government).WEPWork Experience Program; forced labor pro-gram that mandates NYC welfare recipients partici-pate in unpaid menial work to continue receivingassistance.

GLOSSARY AND

COMMONLY-USED ACRONYMS



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tion and a return to homelessness.Emmaia Gelman, Theresa Okeh of the Kickin Azz

Van Club, Darya Vladimirovna ( a New School studentwhen we met her), the Radical Homosexual Agenda,and the members of the Asociacion Pro Derechos delos Confinados, were all allies who provided moral andmaterial support to the Rental Subsidies Campaign.Finally, the two campaign organizers spanning the fouryears of the campaign, Tyletha Samuels and NikitaPrice, as well as organizer trainees assigned to theCampaign, Letitia Ledan, Rosemarie Santiago andsummer organizing intern, Dalida Javier, all playedimportant roles in the development of this project.

Finally, we are grateful to Trinidad M. Pea of ImpactDesign Graphics for her powerful graphic representa-tion of our work.

While we acknowledge the participation of every-one who assisted Picture the Homeless with this proj-ect, without the organizers, organizer trainees andmembers and leaders who were personally impactedby these programs, who had the expertise and accessto other homeless people subject to the flaws inherentin the program design and who also had access to thehighest levels of the Department of Homeless Servicesas representatives of Picture the Homeless, this reportwould not have been possible.

Picture the Homeless is a grass roots organiza-tion that was founded and is led by homelessNew Yorkers. Individuals and families who are

homeless are the best equipped to determine theproblems, the solutions and thetactics required to end home-

lessness, for themselves as wellas for their communities.Over the past ten years, wehave built an organizationwhich provides the space, theresources and the opportuni-ties to organize and collective-ly carry out campaigns whichaddress the root causes ofhomelessness. We utilize multi-ple strategies to move ourorganizing campaigns forward.Outreach, issue identification,documentation, direct action,

civil disobedience, participato-ry research, public education,public policy work, litigation,media work, popular education and ally work areamong the tools that we use in various combinationsto both build power among people who are homeless,

as well as move targets to cede our demands.Picture the Homeless was founded by two homeless

men,Anthony Williams and Lewis Haggins, in November,1999. Both were staying in Bellevue Mens Shelter.

Like most homeless folks, theyknew that real solutions to

homelessness are possible. Wewere born out of the need toend the mass institutionaliza-tion of homeless individualsand families in shelters and jailsand to change the negativeimages of homeless people inthe public imagination animage based on negative, raciststereotypes of criminality, men-tal illness, addiction. Imagesbased provide cover for puni-tive public policies.

Today, Picture the

Homeless is a citywide, multira-cial, bilingual organization andour constituency includes

homeless people living in shelters as well as those livingon the streets. We challenge the conventional wisdomthat everyone is a paycheck away from being homeless.

III. ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

If the silence of thepoor, and our acquies-cence to oppression,

is necessary tomaintaining inequality,we have learned that

making our voicesheard is only the firststep in dismantling it.



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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

Misrepresenting homelessness as something that canhappen to anyone takes the focus away from the realityof homelessness and the relationship between extremepoverty, race and housing exclusion.

Homeless folks are the very poor whose incomes aresimply too low to afford housing. They are overwhelm-ingly African American and

Latino in New York City. Whether they belong to othercommunities, such as LGBT, formerly incarcerated, men-tally ill, etc., is secondary to extreme poverty. The ques-tion of how to categorize the hundreds of thousands ofhouseholds living in doubled and tripled up conditions ismore nuanced, and a significant number can be consid-

ered homeless, in termsof having no otheroptions by which toobtain their own hous-ing. These numbers aremore difficult to quanti-fy, but we shouldn'texclude them from ouranalysis because we

haven't developed thelanguage to discussthem. Hopefully, this willbe the topic of furtherstudy.

Civil Rights andHousing are the twoissues areas withinwhich we have devel-oped organizing cam-paigns. Our Civil Rights

campaigns demand the right to be in public space freeof police harassment, through selective enforcement ofthe law and Quality of Life ordinances. While housing is

not a civil right in the United States, the intersection ofrace, poverty and homelessness demand that housingexclusion and policing practices be viewed through abroader social justice lens. Our Housing campaigndemands the right to housing, not shelters for all home-less and poor people. We primarily focus on the issuesof the warehousing vacant buildings and lots and themisallocation of public funding that privileges commu-nity development practices that result in gentrificationand funding housing development for middle and upperclass folks at the expense of the poor. More informa-tion on both the Civil Rights and Housingcampaigns is available on our website, www.pic-turethehomeless.org. Our Rental Subsidies campaign

monitored and fought for improvements in the RentalSubsidies programs that are the primary source ofrental assistance for homeless families to move fromshelter to housing, (apart from supportive housing),since 2004. Their hard work has resulted in the fol-lowing report.

The problem isnot that there is

no money to help home-less people, it is that

money is being used towarehouse poor peoplein shelters and jails

who are overwhelminglyBlack and Latino.



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The Shelter campaign at Picture the Homelessbegan analyzing the Mayor's Five Year Plan toReduce Homelessness upon its release in June of

2004. The Plan itself was comprised of nine compo-nents, with homeless prevention and Rental Subsidiesbeing two critical innovations. The Rental SubsidiesCampaign emerged in early 2005. We immediatelybegan monitoring the implementation of the firstRental Subsidy, HousingStability Plus (HSP).Monitoring the consequencesof this disastrous programwas a vital element of ourorganizing efforts to force thecity to create a housing sub-

sidy program that would helphomeless folks get housingand keep it. From monitoringwe moved to documentationand data analysis, which thisReport is the result of. Whileparticipatory research is animportant tool, we don'tbelieve that homeless folksneed to legitimize their experi-ence through excessive datacollection. Further researchis sometimes code used toquiet dissent, as in we can't

do anything about the prob-lem, until further research isconducted. We hope thatthis Report is a tool for struc-tural changes in the adminis-tration of rental assistanceprograms for the very poor.

As a homeless member-ship organization, we had theunique capacity to identifypotential program design flawsin HSP and to document it'simplementation. Many of ourmembers and staff were directly impacted by this sub-

sidy program. In 2006, we began conducting theresearch and data analysis for this report. For a grassroots organization with 3 paid staff to carry out such anendeavor is testimony to the degree of outrage at theamount of waste and failed promise exemplified by theRental Subsidies Program. The survey questions reflect-

ed the themes which emerged during outreach. Whenwe approached the DHS with these issues, we were toldto refer individual clients to the Advocacy Department.However, as this report reveals, the problems that home-less households encountered are structural, and inherentto the programs design.

The Riverview Welfare Center on 125th St. in Harlemis the designated welfare center for rental subsidy recip-

ients, we focused a lot of oursurvey collection there. Since allhomeless subsidies are adminis-tered through HRA, all recipientsare obliged to visit the Riverviewfor regular appointments as wellas in emergencies such as

requests for fair hearings toappeal a case closure whichtriggers rent stop payments.Twice a week, we set up a tableon the sidewalk outside of theRiverview Annex and we alsoinfiltrated the center, standing inline and chatting with folks untilsecurity noticed us and asked usto leave. For the most part, sur-veyors were homeless membersof our Rental SubsidiesCampaign, with some assistancefrom youth interns and allies,

under the coordination ofCampaign Organizer NikitaPrice. Other survey locationsincluded soup kitchens and shel-ters. Emmaia Gelman, a gradu-ate student in Urban Planning atMIT, collaborated with theRental Subsidies campaignorganizer Nikita Price (himself aparticipant in the HousingStability Plus program), andcampaign members to develop asurvey and database that could

serve as a tool for documenting the failures of the pro-

gram. Through this process of data collection and crit-ical analysis, we identified the most egregious issuesfaced by homeless households caught in the RentalSubsidy programs, collectively brainstormed solutionsand developed campaign demands.

Campaign meetings back at the office focused on

IV. CONTEXT, DATA COLLECTIONAND METHODOLOGY

"I was the first personto receive a voucherfor Child Advantage.

Under this programyou receive an inter-view with NYCHA forSection 8. I compliedwith everything. Mypaperwork was lost,

and DHS offeredno apology or

explanation. Whatthey offered wasone more year onChild Advantage.

The Revolving DoorSyndrome isvery real."

--SOPHIA BRYANT,PICTURE THE HOMELESS



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CONTEXT, DATA COLLECTIONAND METHODOLOGY

examining the range of issues identified during outreachand survey collection with greater depth. Members iden-tified and analyzed the most commonly cited problemsand mapping clusters of issues, such as eligibility, apart-ment conditions, and housing sustainability. From 2005until 2009, we waged an organizing campaign to makesubstantive improvements in the Rental Subsidies pro-grams, some of which we won in April of 2007 with thecreation of the Advantage subsidy program.

Over a period of eighteen months from April 2007 toOctober 2008, Picture the Homeless members, volun-teers and staff completed 500 in-depth surveys withNew Yorkers who were in homeless shelters andapproved for a housing subsidy (about one third of thetotal sample), or were in housing subsidized by one of

the Rental Subsidies programs, were applying for hous-ing subsidies from theDepartment of HomelessServices, or who were home-less again because they hadbeen evicted from housingdue to problems with theirrental subsidy. Our surveyincludes residents of all fiveboroughs. Data were coded,entered into SPSS, andaggregated to report fre-quencies. Technical assis-tance provided by Sociologist

Jamie McCallum was instru-mental in our ability to sortthrough our stack of 500+surveys, code the data, andtake the findings back tocampaign leaders to beginthe data analysis. Additionaldata was collected throughfollow-up phone interviewswith subsidy clients, as wellas face-to-face at the Picturethe Homeless office in Marchand April 2009. Other testi-monies used for this report

were gathered during theHomeless People's Trial ofMayor Bloomberg,on the 4thanniversary of his Five YearPlan in June of 2008. Interviews with landlords werecompleted via phone in May 2009 by Jamie McCallum

and Linda Contes.Finally, the city's decision to prioritize families for

these housing subsidies, and therefore the high numbersof survey respondents with children, seems to be dictat-ed more by the intricacies of available funding than fromany concern for the well-being of the children and par-ents. After all, while homeless singles have a right toshelter in New York City, homeless families do not, andfor years the city has turned homeless families awaywhen they apply for shelter. The majority of persons inthe NYC shelter system are families with children.

Administration officials like toclaim poverty when they'reexplaining why they can'tcome up with real solutions tohomelessness and the housingcrisis. Yet this argument isclearly made in bad faith, con-sidering that the city is alreadyspending massive amounts ofmoney to keep people in shel-terfar in excess of what itwould cost to provide rental

assistance, totaling $750 mil-lion a year. One member ofPicture the Homeless receivedconfirmation from HRA thatthe city was paying over$3,300 a month to keep themin a tiny shelter room with ashared bathroom and nokitchen. But when that samecouple was offered a WorkAdvantage voucher, theamount was just over $960 amonth! The city has no prob-lem spending massive

amounts of money, as long as(1) homeless people continueto represent an opportunity for

other people to profit, and (2) real estate businessas usual can continue.

BUT THERES NO MONEY

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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

since that time is a sign of the increasing numbers of folkscoming into the system - an indicator of the worsening ofthe housing crisis under Mayor Bloomberg.

Then in 2005, in a stunning reversal of two decadesof city policy, the Bloomberg administration removedhomelessness as a priority for the two primary housingsubsidies that had been working: Section 8 vouchers andpublic housing programs, ostensibly in response to mas-sive Section 8 cuts from the federal government.However, when 12,000 new Section 8 vouchers werereleased to New York City in early 2007, and 5,000 newpublic housing units made available homeless NewYorkers were not reinstated as a priority. It was actuallyPicture the Homeless in 2002, who initially informed theDepartment of Homeless Services, at a meeting with then

Commissioner Linda Gibbs, that welfare (TANF) dollarscould be spent on housing.

Yet, instead of using TANF funding in addition toSection 8 and NYCHA to expand housing resources forhomeless New Yorkers, the Bloomberg Administrationreplaced Section 8 and NYCHA with time-limited subsi-dies that paid at less than market rate effectively reduc-ing housing options for homeless families! This, incredi-bly, during a period of hyper-gentrification where land-lords in low income neighborhoods are refusing evenSection 8.

Picture the Homeless had been engaged in the plan-

ning and monitoring of the Five Year Plan to ReduceHomelessness since its announcement. Not that we imag-ined that the City was committed to really reducing home-lessness, but out of the understanding that if homelessfolks aren't at the table, then even modest reforms don'toften materialize. We were active in the task forces creat-ed by the Implementation process of the Five Year Planafter its unveiling, beginning in the summer and throughthe fall of 2004. In fact, we were often the only homelessfolks with actual experience with these programs at meet-ings once Housing Stability Plus was implemented and amonthly workgroup was created to monitor implementa-tion. Some of the early improvements to HSP were a directresult of Picture the Homeless members,who brought pho-tos of substandard housing to these meetings, and proof

that landlords were charging them illegal surcharges, inaddition to the rent on the lease. When cuts and changesin eligibility criteria for Section 8 and public housing wasannounced in the fall of 2004, we mobilized homelessfolks and housing specialists to look at the impact of thesecuts,particularly the over 1,000 households in shelter whoalready had a Section 8 voucher but were stuck in shelterand desperately seeking housing.

Housing Stability Plus A Catch 22Housing Stability Plus (HSP) incorporated fundamentalelements of welfare because (TANF) dollars provided thefunding for the rental subsidies. This is why being on wel-fare was a requirement for eligibility for HSP. HSP is

administered by the Human Resources Administration

Homelessness prevention was another element of Mayor Bloomberg's Five Year Plan that received a great dealof positive media attention. Initially created to help families stabilize their existing housing situations, so they wouldnot need to go into the shelters, in practice the program's structural flaws meant that many people simply couldnot access any assistance. The initial nine neighborhoods selected were based on their sending the majority ofhomeless families into the shelter system.

A former case manager at one of the citys HomeBase homelessness prevention providers, who asked toremain anonymous, gave Picture the Homeless extensive testimony about the failures of the prevention programs.There was initial optimism about the program as described by the Department of Homeless Services, the caseworker told us. Problems cropped up when DHS began to micro-analyze our periodic reports, telling us not to focuson specific issues so much. In effect, DHS created an unwritten priority system that severely restricted the pro-grams effectiveness. We were urged not to work on people applying for shelter from NYCHA and Section 8 apart-

ments.This was especially problematic because in the district in which we operate, the vast majority of the peoplewho approached us for help were coming from living doubled-up in these exact situations... Within six months ofthe implementation of the homeless prevention program, the word on the street in this neighborhood was dontbother; they cant help you.A housing court judge told us our experience with HomeBase is that its totally unre-alistic given the timeline at housing court. I know many HomeBase case workers at other organizations who areleaving, because dissatisfaction and frustration is high across the board.

FAILURES OF HOMEBASE

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(HRA) which also oversees other forms of public assis-tance like Medicaid, food stamps and cash. Tying rentalassistance to welfare guidelines however, meant that get-ting a low wage job that still kept you within the povertyguidelines but slightly over welfare eligibility criteria,could make you at once ineligible for rental assistance forHSP but also unable to afford rent on your own. This is atthe core of the HSP Catch 22 but there were additionalproblems in program design and implementation.

Testifying before the New York City Council inDecember of 2004 about the proposed HSP rental vouch-er program for homeless New Yorkers in shelter, LindaGibbs, then Commissioner of the Department of HomelessServices and now Deputy Mayor, was asked what wouldhappen to the homeless people who got a job and lost

their subsidy and ended up back in shelter. She respond-ed that we are not designing a program around the peo-ple who fail, as if getting a job was a sign of failure, asopposed to a rental assistance program that discouragedemployment!

DHS's poor inspection process prior to tenant movein, combined with the low dollar value of the subsidies,forced many people into unsafe apartments. Becausehomeless families are subject to sanction by shelter work-ers as non-compliant, there was tremendous pressureexerted on families to take apartments through HSP.However, this also created an environment for landlordsto charge shelter residents illegal side deals (money abovethe amount stated on the lease) in order to approve them

for apartments because the value of the voucher was farbelow market rate. Many were obligated to pay out ofpocket side deals directly to the landlord in order to get alease, over and above their on-paper contribution to therent. Yet when shelter residents didn't get an apartmentfast enough, they were sanctioned as non-compliant.

Tremendous obstacles to maintaining housing forHSP tenants, and which is also fundamental to welfarepolicy, is the 5 year lifetime limit. The HSP subsidy fea-tured a 20% reduction in assistance for each of the 5years. Under HSP, tenants have to come up with theincreased rent balance each year but are prohibited fromworking at the same time to earn more money withoutlosing the entire subsidy. When asked what would hap-

pen to tenants who could not pay the higher rents afterthe first step-down, Linda Gibbs told the Gotham GazetteMaybe landlords wont act on evictions when the rentgoes down, theyll let it go.VII However, the apartmentsrented through the HSP program are is not low incomehousing but market rate housing. So once the subsidy or

the lease ended, tenants were expected to assume the fullamount of the rent.

We were successful in moving the Department ofHomeless Services to establish a monthly HSP workgroupto monitor the implementation of the HSP program, yet ittook an entire year to get an HRA representative at thismeeting, although many of the problems causes by HSPcame from HRA and it's system of rental payments.Neither the General Welfare Committee, nor the StateSocial Services Committee has held hearings on theRental Subsidies programs to date. Although both entitieshave oversight power and can hold DHS and HRAaccountable for systems failures and win improvementsfor homeless New Yorkers, they have failed to do so.

HSP was widely praised in the media by conservative

think tanks and homeless service non-profits that getmassive amounts of city money. In a Daily Newseditorialby Doe Fund founder George Macdonald, he praisedMike's tough love, and said the new program repre-sented a quantum leap toward moving homeless peopleaway from a mentality of dependency and entitlement,toward one of self-regeneration and self-sufficiencyVIII.However, HSP was immediately recognized by homelesspeople as inherently flawed with potentially catastrophicconsequences. Members of Picture the Homeless testifiedbefore the New York City Council and the New York StateAssembly in 2005 to highlight the program's internal con-tradictions, prepared with graphs and charts that were farmore detailed and sophisticated than anything the city

bureaucrats could offer in support of the plan. It is typicalof these processes however, that the policy makers andpublic officials speak first and then leave, while the peo-ple directly impacted by the programs speak last, to agenerally empty hearing room.

Because HSP was designed to disallow work andrequired welfare participation, it kept folks in poverty.Inconsistencies in rental payments by HRA created anoth-er set of obstacles for homeless families to maintain hous-ing. HRA is notorious for caseworker and computer errorsthat result in case sanctions, the majority of which areoverturned once participants file for a fair hearing.After the first generation of HSP apartments were up forlease renewal,many landlords refused to renew HSP leas-

es, and it was a challenge to find new landlords wereinterested in accepting the program. While theDepartment of Homeless Services replaced HSP with theAdvantage programs (detailed below) thousands oftenants are still stuck in HSP apartmentsas indicated inour survey results, and in our interview with HSP recipient

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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Delores Williams on page 19. Poorly conceived and poor-ly implemented, the issuance of new HSP vouchers wasofficially abandoned in April of 2007.

Inefficiency with HRA funded rental paymentsresulted in disruption to tenants who were dragged intohousing court, subject to eviction. Imagine the devasta-tion of being in shelter and getting an apartmentthrough HSP and then being evicted, often losing your

belongings, because the city failed to pay its portion ofyour rent. HSP participants received misinformation, orsometimes no information, that resulted in sanctions,case closures, eviction notices, in many cases, loss ofsubsidies. Although the City has officially shifted to theAdvantage rental subsidy programs described below,and HSP ended effective April 2007, there are still thou-sands of formerly homeless households, the majoritywith children, who are in HSP funded apartments andwho are still subject to these flawed policies.As our sur-vey results will indicate, there is no effective transfer

From the moment of its introduction, homeless people fought to fix or eradicate HSP. Here is a capsule history ofthe organized opposition that ultimately resulted in its destruction. This report represents the culmination of this

organized resistance!June 2004. Mayor Bloomberg releases his Five Year Plan to end homelessness. Picture the Homeless protestsoutside his gala breakfast at the Grand Hyatt, because no homeless people were involved in developing the plan.One component of the plan involves reducing the shelter population by taking away incentives for homeless peo-ple to enter shelter.

November 2004. Mayor Bloomberg announces that homeless people will no longer receive a priority forSection 8 vouchers. Over 1,000 people who had already received a Section 8 voucher were informed they wereno longer validand case workers are calling us up saying they have clients talking about committing suicide.

December 2004. Mayor Bloomberg releases Housing Stability Plus. Picture the Homeless travels to Albany tomeet with State welfare commissioner to demand that he block approval of State funding for this disastrousplan. A photograph of our protest at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, singing homeless carols such asBloomberg the Red-Faced Mayor, was one of Time Magazine's Photos of the Week.

January 2005. We hold an accountability session in our office with high-ranking DHS executives.

February 2005. Homeless people host a workshop at the annual conference of the New York State Legislature'sBlack and Puerto Rican Caucus, regarding the flaws in the rental subsidies program and the need for compre-hensive housing policies for low-income people.

May 2005. Our work to document and expose the failings of HSP results in increased media attention and DHScommitments to fix the biggest problems.

2005-2006.We target Bloomberg, DHS,HRA, and State OTDA Commissioner Robert Doar through direct actions,letter-writing campaigns, town hall meetings, and other actions.

January 2007. We take two busloads of homeless people up to Albany to meet with newly-appointed OTDACommissioner David Hansell and demand that he block further funding of HSP.

April 2007. Under new Commissioner Robert Hess, DHS acknowledges failure of HSP and eradicates it, replac-ing it with the Advantage rental subsidies.

April 2007. Newly-appointed DHS Commissioner Robert Hess attends an accountability session with members ofPicture the Homeless; commits to expand eligibility to the Advantage program to domestic violence survivors.

October 2007. At a press conference on the steps of City Hall, Mayor Bloomberg commits to meet with Picturethe Homeless. He later reneges.September 2008. After we meet with with DiBlasio staff, the General Welfare committee holds a hearing onthe Mayor's Five Year Planbut refuses to include testimonials about the rental subsidies.

October 2008. After our sleep-out protest at the New York State Office Building, we meet with State AssemblyMember Keith Wright to demand oversight hearings at the state level into the rent subsidies.

OPPOSITION TO HSP

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Mayor Bloomberg received a lot of positivemedia coverage for his Five Year Plan whenit was unveiled in 2004. Announcing a plan

to significantly reduce homelessness is big, and thehoopla surrounding its release was designed toimpress. For journalists and others without much of anunderstanding of the root causes of homelessness, itsounded good. Yet the numbers of homeless people inthe New York City shelter system have not substantive-ly gone down overalland the number of families withchildren entering shelters rose 38%, from 3,308 to4,550because what is needed is a comprehensivehousing plan, not a homeless plan.

During the Five Year period covered by Mayor

Bloomberg's plan to reduce homelessness, the num-bers reveal the extent of his failure:

34% increase in the number of adult families enter-ing the Department of Homeless Services (DHS)

3% increase in single adults in shelter.

38% decrease in placements of single adults intopermanent or temporary housing

9% increase in family homelessness from 2007 to2008. In November 2008, 9,720 homeless familieslived in shelters, the highest number since the city

began collecting such data in 1981.

85% increase in the Department of HomelessServices' budget since the Mayors Five-Year Planbegan. According to a 2008 report by the New YorkCity Independent Budget Office, with little results.

Shelter utilization rates were all taken directly fromthe New York City Department of Homeless Services'website.IX The portfolio of rental subsidies at the cen-ter of Mayor Bloombergs shelter-to-housing pipelinefor New York Citys homeless have fallen short of eventhe most pessimistic expectations. While DHS reportsinclude a small number of success stories, the truth

lies, as is so often the case, hidden in the details. Theresults of our survey paint a grim picture ofBloomberg's much-hyped rental subsidies. They alsoreveal critical demographics of the folks most impact-ed by these subsidy programs. Of our 500 surveys, wefound that:

87% of respondents had children.

88% of respondents did not have another workingadult in their household, even if they themselveswere working.

87% had been homeless at least once before intheir life.

84% of respondents were unemployed

80% of the respondents were female, and themedian age was 31.

71% report being capable mentally and physicallycapable of working.

70% could not pay their portion of the rent ontheir own, in spite of the city's claim that their sub-sidies would allow homeless families to sustainthemselves in housing once the subsidy period wasup again placing tenants at high risk of returningto homelessness.

69% of respondents had been to housing courtbecause of a subsidy-related issue. This is a stag-gering disruption into the lives of householdsalready struggling to keep afloat. Since manylandlords demand exorbitant up-front fees or

outright refuse to rent to clients who are listed inthe infamous blacklist of tenants who havebeen to housing court, this further stigmatizeshomeless people and makes it even harder tofind real housing.

41% had arrears on their apartment, averaging$3,000an average backlog of about six months,putting them at high risk of becoming homelessagain. Note our map on page 17, illustrating thedistribution of arrears. The highest-density zonesare indicated in deep red and are mainly located inneighborhoods north of the Harlem River, but alsoin East New York in Brooklyn, and a few neighbor-

hoods east of the Rockaways, in Queens.

73% had HSP, 13% had Advantage NY, and 9%had Section 8 vouchers, of those respondents whohad rental subsidies,

VI. FINDINGS

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44% of those surveyed (nearly 74% holdingHSP vouchers) had never heard of theAdvantage program.

21.7% had heard of the Advantage program butnever received any information or application mate-rials from their DHS or HRA case workers. Of the fewthat were able to transfer from HSP to Advantage,many reported that the transfer process was unrea-sonably long, complex, and arbitrary.

15% of our respondents with a rental subsidy werestill living in homeless shelters due to their inabilityto locate housing with their rental subsidy voucher.

While our survey did not inquire about race, numer-ous other studies, such as those done by the VeraInstitute for Justice and the statistics provided by theNYC Department of Homeless Services, have document-ed the racialization of homelessness. According to theVera Institute's report Understanding FamilyHomelessness, 64% of homeless families were black,and 35% were Latino.X Additionally, the Manhattanneighborhoods of highest subsidy density correspond tothe results of Picture the Homeless' 2006 count ofvacant buildings and lots in Manhattan. In addition,these are the same neighborhoods impacted by manyother indicators of socioeconomic instabilitysuch asrates of incarceration, housing code violations, HIV sero-prevalence, obesity, and lack of access to health care.

Zip code Selection

0

1-1256

1257-2090

2091-3472

3473-5200

LEGEND

Distribution of rent arrears on city-subsidized buildings

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abuse, and other disabilities, requiring a broad array ofexpensive services in order to sustain themselves inhousing. In reality, what the respondents to our surveyhave in common is extreme poverty and an inability tosustain themselves in housing without a rental subsidyin the current economic context. The solution, there-fore, is not more servicesit's a real housing subsidythat works for all homeless households without thebureaucratic bungling characterized by the RentalSubsidies programs implemented by the Bloombergadministration.

Charting the rise of homelessness against the totalcollapse of public funding for housing for very poor peo-ple since 1980 indicates that only a federal commitmentto fully fund HUD initiatives targeting the very poor will

allow us to really solve homelessness. Having under-mined previous attempts to help homeless New Yorkerstransition into decent homes, Mayor Bloomberg haschosen programs designed to fail. It is important now torecognize the extent of those failures and the possibili-ty for real alternatives to take their place.

I moved into my HSP apartment in November of 2006. When HSP was replaced with Advantage, I neverreceived anything from DHS - I only found out about it through Picture the Homeless. I called DHS to find outif I was eligible for Work Advantage - I was told NO, because I work less than 20 hours. I increased my hoursto 20, to qualify for Work Advantage. Which resulted in my case being closed, because at 20 hours I was overthe income limit for HSP for one person. With my case closed, I lost my HSP as well - this was around March2008. I appealed; I reduced my hours at work to get back on HSP. I asked DHS how I could get a transfer toAdvantage and I got the same story - they told me I had to increase my hours to more than 20 hours a week.So we went to the DHS Office of Client Advocacy to find out about switching from HSP to Work Advantagewithout having my case closed. They gave me a printout of a Work Advantage letter that said I could switch,and that would pay $889 a month. They said that my landlord said that he would accept the switch. While Iwas waiting to sign a new lease, my case was closed - for excess income - because DHS had told me to raisemy hours again. All of this didn't get resolved until July/August of 2008, so I was about five months in arrears.I had to go to the Public Advocate's office to get HRA to produce the checks to pay my landlord. And inDecember of 2008, I happened to call my landlord and found out that I had my own personal portion of thearrears, because HRA had given me a step-down but they had never alerted me. So I'm still working part-time,still under HSP, was applying for some apartments, some of which take Work Advantage, I got a printout of anHSP letter, and said I'm still not eligible for Advantage. Now they want me to do WEP. I'm a CNA - surgicalassistant - and I was trained as a specialist in vascular surgery. And they want me to rake leaves in a park, orsomething along those lines. They want to make me work for free - and it might conflict with my current job,so it could result in me losing my job.

D. WILLIAMS: TRANSFER FROM HSP

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Mayor Bloombergs Five Year Plan had loftygoals but no way to achieve them. Havinggutted time-proven programs like Section 8,

and replacing them with time-limited subsidies like HSPand Advantage NY, the Mayor played a shell game withhomeless New Yorkers, citing how many householdsreceived subsidies as a measure of success, not whetheror not housing was sustainable. Yet given the thou-sands of homeless households moving from shelter tohousing, the fact that the overall numbers keep risingtells us that the Mayor is completely out of touch withhow low income New Yorkers are impacted by the hous-ing crisis as a whole. With the numbers of householdsexiting shelter, the lack of a decrease in the shelter cen-sus means that more folks keep becoming homeless

than ever before!The Rental Subsidies campaign at Picture the

Homeless proposes the following strategies to strength-en rental subsidy policies in New York that could alsoserve as a model for other communities as well:

1: A RENTAL SUBSIDY THAT WORKS FORALL HOMELESS NEW YORKERSNew York City is a city of renters. The lowest income NewYorkers either need a massive increase in wages andincome supports, or a comprehensive Rental Assistanceprogram to stem the increasing tide of homelessness.Until a real subsidy is developed that works for all lowincome New Yorkers, New York City's homeless policies

will continue to be a series of Band-Aid solutions.

2: HRA: ISSUE A MORATORIUMON STOP-PAYMENT NOTICES.The city council and the state legislature must force HRAto amend existing policies to cease the issuance of stop-payment notices for temporary case closures. Every timea subsidy recipient gets an interruption to their publicassistance benefits, HRA stops paying their rent.Sanctions are routinely imposed in error and reversedwhen challengedonly 7.8% of sanctions are upheldafter a fair hearing.XII So when a person's rent is tied into their public assistance, even a temporary stoppage ofpayment could result in eviction or a build-up of rent

arrears that could land someone in housing court.

3: HRA: ISSUE A MONTHLY LETTER TO SUBSIDYHOLDERS RELAYING THE STATUS OF THEIR SUBSIDYMany tenants do not learn that HRA has stopped payingtheir rent and they are in rent arrears until they receive

an eviction notice. Communication with HRA case work-ers is often .As a matter of policy, HRA should begin toissue monthly letters to all subsidy holders, informingthem of the status of their subsidyincluding howmuch time they have left on the subsidy and a confirma-tion that the city is still paying its share.

4. INCREASE DOLLAR VALUE OFSUBSIDIES TO EQUAL SECTION 8The dollar value of these subsidies is significantly belowthe Fair Market Rent identified by HUD for New YorkCity. As a result, homeless households with these vouch-ers are unable to compete on the open residential realestate market, and are forced to choose from a verysmall number of inferior apartments, with often

unscrupulous landlords. Raising the dollar value of citysubsidies to coincide with the dollar value of Section 8vouchers (which are pegged to Fair Market Rent) wouldgive homeless people a fighting chance at getting adecent apartment.

5. HOLD STATE HEARINGS ON CITYAGENCY FAILURES OF COMMUNICATIONThe New York State Office of Temporary and DisabilityAssistance must hold hearings on the failures of commu-nication between the New York City Department ofHomeless Services and the NYC Human ResourcesAdministration. Both HSP and the Advantage Programsdepend upon money from the state, and as such the

State has the power to hold these two agencies account-able for their repeated refusals to implement the urgent-ly-needed changes outlined by homeless people.

6. HOLD CITY HEARINGS TOSCRUTINIZE AGENCY BUDGETSThe New York City Council's General WelfareCommittee has the authority to block passage of thebudget for the city agencies under its purview, includ-ing the Department of Homeless Services and theHuman Resources Administration. Historically, thiscommittee has been extremely reluctant to go upagainst the Mayor by taking this step. As a first stepto forcing city agencies to amend these programs, the

General Welfare Committee must hold hearings intothe failures of HSP and the Advantage Program, andwhere the commissioners will be obligated to sitthrough and address the demands of homeless peopleliving out the consequences of these disastrousagency policies.

VII. CONCLUSIONSAND RECOMMENDATIONS

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7. ISSUE KNOW YOUR RIGHTSPAMPHLETS TO ALL SUBSIDY RECIPIENTSHomeless people with city rental subsidies are subject tonumerous violations of their rights. Shelter workers try toforce them to accept substandard housing, under threatof expulsion to the street. HRA employees close theircases arbitrarily. Landlords violate laws by outrightrefusing to accept these subsidies, or by forcing the ten-ants to pay side deals over and above their own con-tribution to the subsidy. Many homeless people do knowtheir rights, but do not know of any recourse when theirrights are violated. DHS and HRA must issue Know YourRights pamphlets to all subsidy recipients, with clearsteps that they can take against people who breaklawsand a commitment from the city to actually

enforce these laws.

8. SUPPORT HOUSINGNOT WAREHOUSING LEGISLATIONThroughout New York City, there are still massiveamounts of vacant buildings and lots. These propertiesrepresent a major opportunity for the development oflow-income housing as a tool to stabilize neighborhoodsand fight gentrification. A city administration that is seri-ously committed to ending homelessness should supportthe Housing Not Warehousing legislation developed byPicture the Homeless and allies, which would institute anannual citywide count of vacant buildings and lots, andensure that development of these properties includes a

minimum of 50% set aside for homeless people.

CONCLUSIONSPicture the Homeless has been engaged with decision-makers with the power to provide oversight and to holdthe city accountable for the successes and failures of theRental Subsidies programs, from their inception. Amongthem, include the Commissioners of the Department ofHomeless Services and the Human ResourcesAdministration, Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs, the CityCouncil General Welfare Committee Chair Bill DiBlasio,and the New York State Social Services Committee Chair,Keith Wright, New York State OTDA Commissioner DavidHansell and his predecessor Robert Doar. Even at the

urging of homeless families subject to these flawed pro-grams, to this day, there have not been emergency hear-ings on the failures of the Rental Subsidy programs.Hence the need for homeless New Yorkers caught up inthe Rental Subsidies fiasco to conduct our own researchand issue our own report.

Homeless New Yorkers know what conditions createhomelessness. Merely managing a homeless systemdoes nothing to change the root causes of homeless-ness. Once you lose your housing, effective rental assis-tance programs are critical. Picture the Homeless urgesthe city council and the state legislature to force theDepartment of Homeless Services and the HumanResources Administration to the table, to be heldaccountable and to adopt the recommendations of thosedirectly affected by these programs. Further, we hopethat eyes opened as a result of reading this report willget involved in supporting our Housing Not Warehousingcampaign, which is designed to bring about real, sys-temic change to housing preservation and productionfor homeless and poor New Yorkers.

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VIII. SOURCES

IA Night on the Streets, by Robert Kolker. New YorkMagazine, March 16 2008. http://nymag.com/news/features/45103/

IICruel to be Kind, by Cassi Feldman. City Limits,Sept-Oct 2005. http://www.citylimits.org/content/articles/viewarticle.cfm?article_id=3198

III

New York Charges Rent for WorkingHomeless, by Julie Bosman and AndyNewman. The New York Times, May 8 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/nyregion/09shelters.html?fta=y

IVNew York City Temporarily Stops ChargingRent to the Working Homeless, by JulieBosman.The New York Times, May 21 2009 .

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/nyregion/22homeless.html?em

V

City Turns Upscale Building in Crown Heightsinto Homeless Shelter, by Ben Chapman andElizabeth Hays. The New York Daily News, June

4 2009. http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2009/06/04/2009-06-04_c ity_turns_upscale_building_into_homeless_shelter.html

VIMayor Bloomberg to homeless: Don't gettoo comfy in luxury condos ... you gotta getout soon, by Adam Lisberg and Elizabeth

Hays. The New York Daily News, June 5 2009.http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2009/06/05/2009-06-05_by_adam_lisberg_ and_elizabeth_hays_daily_news_staff_writers_.html)

VII2005 Eleanor Roosevelt AwardAcceptance Speech. http://cccnewyork.org/publications/2005%20remarks.pdf

VIIIhttp://www.gothamgazette.com/article/housing/20050715/10/1482

IXMike's Tough Love, by George McDonald.The New York Post, November 13 2004.http://www.doe.org/news/pressdetail.cfm?Pr

essID=216&type=archive

XNew York City Department of HomelessServ ices: Statist ics and Reports.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/html/statistics/statistics.shtml

XIUnderstanding Family Homelessness in NewYork City. The Vera Institute for Justice.September 2005. http://nyc.gov/html/dhs/

downloads/pdf/vera_Study.pdf

XIIFor Homelessness, Prevention is theBest Medicine. Bill diBlasio, in theGotham Gazette. September 22 2008.

h t t p : / / w w w . g o t h a m g a z e t t e . c o m / a r t i c l e /

issueoftheweek/20080922/200/2650

XIII2007 Statistical Report On theOperations of New York StateTemporary Assistance Programs, pre-

pared by New York State Office of Temporary andDisability Assistance Bureau of Data Management andAnalysis. p. 44-49. http://otda.state.ny.us/main/reports/2007_LEGISLATIVE_REPORT.pdf

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Picture the Homeless hasbeen tracking the Citysprevious and present failed

policies on dealing with the homeless

issue in an attempt to get this Cityto place the homeless population atthe table when policy is beingdesigned and implemented on theirbehalf. Homeless people do have aplan. Our Housing not Warehousinglegislation would create tens ofthousands of new units of housing

out of vacant buildings."--RYAN GIBBS, PICTURE THE HOMELESS

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