Something to Celebrate: Better Policy in the New State Budget

Jeff Foreman, Director of Policy

New Yorkers can celebrate the opportunity for a tool to move people experiencing homelessness from shelters to stable housing because of the last-second success of advocates and policy makers in removing language from the New York State budget that prohibited it.

Yesterday, as state legislators and Governor Cuomo enacted the new state budget, they removed language prohibiting any city in New York of over 5 million (that’s only New York City; the second largest city, Buffalo, has a 260,000 population) from using state money to fund a rental subsidy program for homeless people. That language prohibiting state and federal funding from the old city Advantage program in 2011 has remained in each budget since then.

Just 5 days before this year’s March 31st deadline the prohibitive language was still firmly in place. There were media stories reporting policy makers were saying it was too late in the process to change it.
But client leaders, advocates and public officials championing the cause stepped up efforts in the final hours of budget negotiations and overcame long odds to remove the prohibitive language. That clears the way for a subsidy program absolutely critical to fighting and ending modern day homelessness.

On Wednesday, March 26, City Council held a public hearing on the issue. Care for the Homeless, along with other advocates and people experiencing homelessness, testified about the need for the program. Care for the Homeless testified a long term, flexible and effective rental subsidy targeted to assist people in moving from shelter to stable housing would produce far better outcomes for the families and individuals involved, for every community in the city and would save substantial tax dollars.

Later that day, by unanimous vote, City Council passed a resolution authored by Councilman Ruben Wills and moved by General Welfare Chair Stephen Levin urging the change. A united de Blasio administration, City Council and advocacy community carried the message to Albany. In that effort, Care for the Homeless client leaders and staff participated in a phone call campaign to legislative leaders asking for the change.     

Happily, in the final contentious hours of budget negotiations the prohibitive language was removed.

Care for the Homeless' Agenda to End Homelessness is based on the idea that policy choices created modern day homelessness and better policy can help end homelessness as we know it. In New York City, eliminating the previous rental subsidy used to transition people from shelters to stable housing caused an enormous increase in homelessness. Creating a working rental subsidy is a critical part of the better policy that can end homelessness in New York City.

This success isn’t an end, though. It’s a beginning. If you want to join our grass roots campaign to build the better policies that can end modern day homelessness as we know it in New York, sign on by sending your e-mail and contact information to policy@cfhnyc.org. 

We’ll sign you up for our monthly Policy Matters newsletter, too!   

Popular posts from this blog

Join Us on Mon, June 22nd for 2nd Annual Summer Solstice Success Celebration!

Image
Join Care for the Homeless and our Client Leaders on Monday, June 22 nd at 4:30 p.m. in celebrating the health care successes of homeless and formerly homeless New Yorkers. The 2 nd Annual CFH Summer Solstice Success Celebration will feature live entertainment, fun and the opportunity to recognize the successes of our clients and thank the providers who delivery high quality, client centered services every day. “So often people focus on the bad news coming out of the shelter system,” said David Broxton, a formerly homeless cancer survivor and Care for the Homeless client. “We want to put the focus on the successes of New Yorkers who have experienced homelessness - people do get back on their feet with the right services available to them.”   The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at the dining room and gardens at Red Oak Apartments, 135 W. 106 th Street in Manhattan, on Monday, June 22, at 4:30 p.m. In addition to celebrating health care stor...
Read more

CFH Executive Director Bobby Watts Responds to Police Homeless Photos on Pix11

Image
Care for the Homeless Executive Director Bobby Watts was featured last night on Pix11 news to talk about an initiative by the Sergeant Benevolent Association to photograph homeless New Yorkers on the street. The officers are posting their pictures to an online Flicker photo album in an attempt to expose a supposed “decrease in quality of life in NYC” but what these pictures really highlight are the difficulties of life on the street. Whatever the politics of the initiative, we know that it’s crucial to find real fixes for the problems of people experiencing homelessness.  “I don’t take a position on the letter or motivation. I really focus on results,” Bobby Watts, executive director of Care for the Homeless, told PIX11 News. “To the extent that more people are aware of homelessness and are determined to find solutions, that can be helpful.” If you see someone in need of services on the street, call 3-1-1 to alert city homeless outreach teams. Click here to watch the ...
Read more

Provider Profile Vol. 5 | Dr. Andrea Littleton

Image
Addressing the Whole Person Dr. Littleton with a Patient The streets outside the Care For the Homeless (CFH) Health Center (located at the Living Room/Safe Haven Shelter) rattle with a rhythm that should be familiar to most New Yorkers. Semi-trucks blow by, footsteps patter on the sidewalk, and the nearest park teems with laughing children. Across the street, a Dominican monastery stands as tall and proud as the day it was built in 1891, adding a touch of history to the area. Conversely, the rhythm inside the halls of the shelter and health center are anything but familiar. Located in the Bronx, the Living Room/Safe Haven a is a 24-hour, open access drop-in site, meaning anyone experiencing street homelessness is welcome to come in and spend time off the streets. CFH site partner BronxWorks offers hot meals, showers, laundry, and housing services to compliment the medical services provided by CFH. Despite the similarities it shares with other CFH sites, the Living Ro...
Read more

Sophie Cares for the Homeless

Image
This young lady couldn’t stop giggling during her health check-up by Sophie As a Nurse Practitioner, Sophie cares for homeless individuals in New York City in her own special way. She started working at Care for the Homeless only two months after graduating from Yale University with her Master’s Degree in Nursing as a Family Nurse Practitioner. Sophie is originally from Portland, Oregon. She received her bachelor’s from Occidental College in Los Angeles, California in 2013 and moved to New York City in 2014 when she started her studies at Yale. Sophie says her mentors at Yale referred her to Care for the Homeless (CFH), where she now practices medicine at two CFH health centers, one in Queens and the other in the Bronx. She enjoys working at CFH because she is always “learning from [her] patients.” She says coming from Oregon to living in New York and working at CFH, she learned a lot about the challenges the city brings and the “incredible resilience” that is needed to live i...
Read more

Reducing Eligibility to Life Saving Services

Image
The current administration has continuously targeted federal benefit programs important to low-income Americans for drastic cuts. A new effort follows suit by proposing a change to how the ‘poverty threshold’ is to be calculated, which will decrease the number of people eligible for important federal benefit programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid. This would affect millions of extremely low-income individuals and families. The current measurement called the “consumer price index (CPI)” has been used for a long time to set the annualized increases in the official poverty threshold. The administration is considering using what is known as “the chained CPI”, a different inflation measure that would result in a slower annual increase of inflation over time. “Chained CPI” assumes that as the prices of goods go up, individuals substitute less expensive items, thereby reducing their overall expenses. Why is this important? The proposed change wou...
Read more