Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Supportive Housing

Supportive Housing

  • Protect New York City's Supportive Housing Providers in the Face of a Mounting Crisis

    Housing at stake (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    New York City’s nonprofit supportive housing community, which has for decades successfully provided deeply affordable housing to formerly unhoused and low-income individuals, is increasingly endangered by New York’s mounting housing crisis.

    Study after study has shown that supportive housing – a combination of affordable housing and voluntary services like case management and mental health and addiction counseling – is the most effective method to

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  • This Holy Season, State Leaders Should Redouble Efforts to Combat Chronic Homelessness with Supportive Housing

    At home (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    This is a holy time for many New Yorkers. Easter, Passover, and Ramadan, all observed this time of year, include important lessons about our collective duty to care for the least fortunate among us. 

    The number of individuals who need that help is growing. Officials across the state are grappling with how to address a homelessness crisis of epic proportions. 

    Multiple studies...

  • With Critical Supportive Housing for Domestic Violence Victims at Risk, We Need Governor Hochul to Step Up

    Gov. Hochul signs legislation (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)


    Everyone wants to feel secure in their own home, but for survivors of domestic violence, safety is an absolute necessity. 

    At New Destiny Housing, we have spent nearly two decades building supportive housing for domestic violence survivors, striving to provide the security and support services that our families need to remain safe from violence and begin to rebuild their lives. 

    But the chronic underfunding of

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  • New Brownsville Complex Offers Housing for Formerly Incarcerated Individuals, Dent in New York's Prison-to-Shelter Pipeline

    The Marcus Garvey Extension Project (photo: The Osborne Association)


    A new supportive housing development with 52 units designated for recently incarcerated individuals is now open in Brownsville, Brooklyn. This past week, the Osborne Association, a nonprofit focused on helping justice-involved people, celebrated the opening of their first housing initiative of its kind, part of their broader $179 million Marcus Garvey Extension Project.

    The effort to provide stable, permanent housing for those who have recently been incarcerated

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  • A Housing Plan for the Pandemic’s Aftermath

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    A housing line-up (photo: Governor's Office)


    Governor Kathy Hochul’s commitment to a $25 billion, five-year housing plan creating and preserving 100,000 affordable homes throughout the state – including 10,000 supportive housing units designed to prevent homeessness – sends a bold and welcome signal to low-income New Yorkers still grappling with the spiraling economic effects of the pandemic. 

    At a time when 4 in 10 job losses have not come

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  • How New York City Can Make Supportive Housing Key to Ending Family Homelessness

    @newdestinyorg

    Supportive housing (photo: @newdestinyorg)


    As Mayor Adams wraps up his first month on the job, one of the most daunting issues he’ll have to address is the city’s homelessness crisis. Within this larger crisis, an often-unseen demographic is particularly in need of urgent action – families with children, the largest segment of people experiencing homelessness.

    While there has been a dip during the pandemic in the number of families experiencing homelessness, New York City still leads the nation in family homelessness with an estimated

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  • Everything Says Put Housing First; So Why Does New York Put Housing Last?

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    Supportive Housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    For several years, perhaps the foremost issue in New York City politics was homelessness. But for all the talk, not much has been done. In fact, things have in some significant ways only been getting worse.

    Housing is a human right. It is a physiological need and we cannot have a functioning society without it. Yet our city has made this most basic need

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  • Seizing the Opportunity to Create New Affordable Housing at Reduced Cost

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    Housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    In Governor Cuomo’s State of the State this week, he announced support for plans to convert underutilized commercial buildings into supportive and affordable housing, saying, "The housing problem in our cities has gotten worse. But the crisis of growing vacancies in our commercial property provides an opportunity. We should convert vacant commercial space to supportive and affordable housing and we should do it now."

    The governor is right, and this could not come at a more critical time. With

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  • We Must Avoid a Repeat of the Battle Between Upper West Siders and Homeless New Yorkers

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    The mayor carrying out the HOPE count (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    It’s a shame that the city’s well-intentioned efforts to stop COVID-19 from spreading throughout homeless shelters turned negative so quickly. After relocating thousands of shelter residents into hotels on the Upper West Side and Midtown, Mayor Bill de Blasio is now reversing course in response to community uproar.

    The mayor’s reversal is a stopgap measure, because the reality is that with a second wave of covid expected this fall, a similar drama will likely rear its head. So,

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  • Defund the DOC, Invest in Supportive Housing

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    Mayor de Blasio discussing jails (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    Michael Tyson, Raymond Rivera, Layleen Polanco, Wayne Henderson, Kalief Browder, Jerome Murdough, Bradley Ballard, Carlos Mercado, Ronald Spear. Just some of the Black and brown people who have died in recent years from neglect or abuse at Rikers Island. As our city and country demand justice for racial inequities in policing and beyond, the budget for New York City’s brutally violent, racially unjust, fiscally unjustifiable Department of Correction must be cut. The savings should

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  • The Coronavirus Crisis Must Open Our Eyes to the Flaws of the New New York

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    Mayor de Blasio at a supportive housing site (photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayor's Office)


    As our great city faces its most challenging crisis in the past 100 years, it has revealed to all of us how the city has radically changed in the past few decades.

    The virus has now put a spotlight on the critical shortage of hospital beds and medical equipment like ventilators. In fact New York City ICU bed capacity ranks in the bottom quarter nationally. If you have lived in the city for over 40 years, as I have, you likely recall how many hospitals have

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  • Despite Need, Gaining More State Support for Affordable Housing Remains Major Challenge for De Blasio

    cuomo gov housing

    (photo: the governor's office)


    Right now, New York City’s government should be taking advantage of the Democratic majority in both houses of the New York State Legislature to make progress addressing the affordable housing and homelessness crisis affecting city residents. But success requires a skillful effort since the political challenge is daunting, despite overwhelming public concern.

    Why now? We have a new Democratic majority in the state Senate elected in 2018. The state Assembly, controlled by Democrats since 1975, has been a liberal body

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  • The Mayor and Governor Found Amazon a New Home Right Down the Street from My Shelter

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    The red carpet has been rolled out and Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo are giddily holding open the doors: Jeff Bezos and Amazon are coming to town, for the low price of $3 billion, a helipad, and prime real estate in Queens. For years, homeless activists have pressed the mayor and governor to invest resources and political will to tackle the historic crisis of homelessness plaguing both our city and state. Instead, they partnered in selling out taxpayers and sidelining politicians to make the Amazon deal a

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  • A Supportive Housing Victory, and Much More To Do

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    Council Members Levin & Salamanca, the authors, foreground (photo: Jeff Reed)


    New York City is facing a crisis. There are more than 60,000 homeless individuals living in the city shelter system daily, and thousands more in shelters for survivors of domestic violence, youth, and those living with HIV/AIDS. An additional estimated 4,000 New Yorkers sleep on the streets each night. And according to the Coalition for the Homeless, the number of homeless

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  • Promoting Tenant Advisory Groups in Supportive Housing

    meeting

    (photo via nycha/flickr)


    The supportive housing model recognizes the inherent dignity in all people. Low-income tenants and people with mental health conditions who were formerly homeless are offered an affordable apartment combined with voluntary supports and services that can help increase self-determination. As supportive housing grows in New York and the country, tenant engagement and empowerment are recognized as important factors in maintaining secure and thriving residences.

    Tenant advisory groups are a promising initiative taking hold in New

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  • Observing Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day & Committing To End It

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    2015 Homeless Persons’ Memorial (photo: Care for the Homeless)


    Today, Wednesday December 21, advocacy and social justice organizations in cities across the country gather together to observe Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day. This annual remembrance is held on winter solstice. It’s fitting this solemn occasion is scheduled for the longest, darkest night of the year, because each night without housing is long, dark and cold.

    In New York City, where the number of people experiencing homelessness is at its all-time high, there will be several observances. The NYC

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  • Lobbying Cuomo: How to Get the Governor on Your Side

    Cuomo speech better NY

    Gov. Cuomo (photo: Don Pollard/Governor's Office)


    Have an issue you want addressed in Albany? Perhaps you’d like the state to legalize your new multi-million dollar venture into the “sharing economy” -- one that terrifies existing business interests and labor unions; maybe you want to change the protections offered by New York’s civil rights laws; or maybe you want in on the hundreds of millions of dollars the state allocates to economic development programs. No matter the issue, you’re going to want Governor

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  • Opposing Shelters Won’t End the Housing Crisis

    Crowley Maspeth shelter

    Council Member Crowley opposes a shelter in Maspeth (photo via Twitter)


    On Wednesday night I attended my community board meeting on a proposed homeless shelter in Maspeth, Queens. The city Commissioner of Social Services, Steve Banks, was there, along with hundreds of residents who are against the shelter. I was one of just a handful of homeless and housing rights advocates in the audience.

    Though I was horrified by the residents who chose to

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  • Does the State have the Conviction and Commitment to End Homelessness?

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    Affordable Housing in East Harlem (Sophie Hecht)


    The week of June 26, over 70 San Francisco media outlets came together to report on homelessness in the Bay Area. The collaboration, the San Francisco Homeless Project, produced over 300 local articles, videos, and radio and television segments, as well as similar collaborations in cities across the U.S. and internationally.

    Within this much deserved media coverage is the sentiment of a former San Francisco mayor, which may describe what ails our approach to the homelessness crisis here in New York State.

    The San Francisco

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  • Advocates, Providers Keep Pressure on Cuomo Over Housing Funds

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    Gov. Cuomo (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    While the 2016 legislative session may be finished, the battle over how the state will allocate $1.9 billion in funds earmarked for supportive and affordable housing is not. Neither is the feud between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, which includes a front over the housing funds.

    After the end-of-session deal-making among Cuomo and legislative leaders yielded an agreement to release only $150 million of the $1.9 billion pledged in this year’s budget, housing

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  • Deals Emerge as Albany Legislative Session Moves Toward Conclusion

    hall cuomo address

    photo via The Governor's Office


    After spending most of what was scheduled to be the last day of legislative session in stop-and-start negotiations, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders appeared on Thursday to reach a framework deal on several big-ticket items, though legislators will continue to negotiate, debate, and vote on Friday.

    After a few issues had been decided on Wednesday, concept agreements emerged Thursday on the process of stripping corrupt lawmakers of their pensions; extending mayoral control of New York City schools for

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  • Fate of $2 Billion in State Housing Funds Unclear as Session Nears End

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    Heastie, Cuomo, Flanagan (l-r) (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin, The Governor's Office)


    Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature allocated $2 billion to spend on 100,000 units of affordable and supportive housing in this year’s budget, which was agreed to on April 1. But they failed to include specifics -- details of how that money would be spent -- kicking those decisions down the road. Now, two months later, they have yet to sort out the details and many stakeholders are worried no deal is in sight as the major negotiating parties face off over

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