Homeless Families Hit Record High over Last Winter

By TRYMAINE LEE - NY TIMES – December, 2007

The number of homeless families living in New York City shelters reached a record high last month, halfway into the Bloomberg administration’s five-year plan to reduce homelessness by two-thirds, according to a report released yesterday by an advocacy group using city figures.

Last month’s total, 9,287 families, was the highest since the city started keeping and publicly releasing such figures in 1979, according to the group, the Coalition for the Homeless.

When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his plan on homelessness in August 2004, the number of homeless families was 8,850 and his goal was to lower that to 7,400 by this point.

The data also showed that while more homeless families were seeking refuge in city shelters, the number being moved into permanent housing fell last year by 11 percent compared with 2005.

The report comes at a time when the amount of housing affordable to low-income residents continues to shrink and the gap between average income and rent continues to grow, advocates for the homeless said.

In preparing its report, the coalition used figures from the city’s Department of Homeless Services. The agency did not dispute the data or the findings, but an agency spokeswoman said that the mayor’s plan was a work in progress and that it might need to be adjusted.

The spokeswoman, Tanya Valle-Batista, also accused the coalition of being more interested in seeking publicity than helping address the problem.

“While the rest of the nonprofit community is working with the city to address these issues, the coalition continues its opportunistic efforts to generate headlines,” Ms. Valle-Batista said in a statement.

The figures show that the city should rethink its strategy to move people into permanent housing, the coalition said. Much of that strategy focuses on a city program started in 2004 that replaced many of the federally subsidized housing programs that had been used to shift homeless welfare recipients into permanent housing.

But a little more than two years into the plan, the number of homeless in shelters is up nearly across the board, exceeding 35,000. In February 2006, according to the report, the total number of homeless New Yorkers in shelters was 31,472 and rose 11.1 percent to 35,252 by last month, according to the report. The number of homeless families in February 2006 was 7,805, rising 17.6 percent to 9,287 by last month, the report said. The number of homeless children in February 2006 was 11,925, and went up 18.1 percent by last month, to 14,287.

The one piece of good news cited by the report was a decline last year, for the second year in a row, in single adults living in shelters.

Patrick Markee, senior policy analyst for the Coalition for the Homeless, said flaws in the mayor’s program, called Housing Stability Plus, kept it from meeting its goals.

“The flaws in the mayor’s program have clearly made it hard for families in shelters to get safe and affordable housing,” he said.

One major problem, he said, is the 20 percent annual reduction in housing subsidies, which is intended to encourage participants to find better-paying jobs.

“This is a subsidy program that cuts the value of the housing subsidy by 20 percent each year, regardless of a family’s circumstance,” Mr. Markee said. “It serves as a work disincentive, and effectively prohibits families from gaining employment income because that would cut them from welfare.”

As a result, Mr. Markee said, some participants’ jobs exclude them from being eligible for welfare. In the meantime, their housing subsidies are cut, leaving them unable to pay rent and, often, sending them back into shelters, Mr. Markee said.

The Department of Homeless Services is planning to make adjustments in its housing subsidy program, Ms. Valle-Batista said. She said the coalition’s findings on homeless families were accurate, but noted that, unlike other large cities, New York defines families as including single parents and couples with no children.

Ms. Valle-Batista also said that the rise of homeless people in shelters meant, in one sense, that the city was doing its job by not turning people away.

Arnold S. Cohen, president and chief executive of Partnership for the Homeless, said that rather than simply being critical of the mayor, the coalition’s findings highlight the growing inequality in New York.

“This is the story about the other New York,” he said, “another city of unimaginable poverty. I don’t think we should ever look at this as a failure. This is an opportunity to learn from our past.”