Housing in NYC, an Opinion.

This is an opinion based post based on my time working within the housing system in New York. During my time holding various positions within the realm of housing I’ve realized a couple of things. Some good as well as some places that can be improved. I’ll start with the good, then discuss what can be done better (in my opinion). My goal with this post would be to provide some insight into the housing system and open dialogue into how we can make this a better system for the individuals that benefit from this system.

While completing my Masters in Social Work I examined the housing system from various angles. That’s natural for me as when I started I began my first job within my focus as a case manager at a women’s shelter. I come to realize that it is a very intricate system that if a person has the resiliency to go through it, they will come out on the other side with a home they can call their own. For those that are unaware of the process it is as follows.

An individual goes through intake at one of the assessment shelters sprinkled throughout the city. This is the first step in the process. The average time in this shelter is about 30 days before where your needs are assessed and then you are moved to a program shelter. During your time in an assessment shelter, you are expected to meet with both medical and mental health professionals (to assess both your medical and mental health needs), meet with HRA (to assess your financial needs) and with an employment specialist/job developer (if you are able to work). Once these things are completed, you are put on the list of people ready to be moved and once a bed is available at one of the program shelters then you will be moved there. Now a program shelter is more specific to your need. There are various types and they are: general, mental health, substance abuse, MICA (mentally ill and chemically addicted), and employment. When you move to one of these shelters, they focus both on the need assessed at the assessment shelter as well as your need for housing. This process can take some time however before a person is able to find the type of housing that would best help them. Let’s run through a quick example. Frank is diagnosed with a moderate case of schizophrenia with fixed delusions and auditory hallucinations. Unfortunately, he does not have the skills needed to live in a home by himself because it would put him at risk for chronic homelessness. After his time at the homeless shelter, he was moved to a mental health shelter. At the mental health shelter he was able to complete a HRA 2010E housing application. This application will determine the housing that would best suit his needs. It was determined he qualifies for 24/7 residence. What this means is that he would be in a housing where there are staff on site to provide case management, medical professionals that assist with medical issues and administering medications, cooks to make meals for the clients if they so choose, and group therapy sessions to provide independent living skills. He’s able to reside here long-term until he can be moved to a level of care where hands on assistance isn’t needed.

Based on this mini fake case the process is pretty straight forward yet for some reason it isn’t translated that way to the clients that undergo this process. On top of that it doesn’t help that the process is not a short process. This is why I stated that an individual has to have a certain level of resiliency to go through the housing system. It’s a long process, riddled with challenges that you wouldn’t expect to or would want to go through at any stage in their life.

Now there are some issues that I’ve realized during my career in this space. First is the issue of empathy within the programs. Certain jobs you shouldn’t approach it as just a job. I would say that most of the jobs that deal with people in this fashion there is a certain level of empathy and understanding that is needed. Without that empathy you allow yourself to get burnt out quickly. Next issue that I found is that with jobs that I have had there has been an organizational issue that is apparent from the top down. What I mean by this is that as a person working on the ground with clients directly, there is a disconnect with upper management. Sometimes it seems like there is little to no support when an issue arises and the workers are left feeling left to their own devices. This leads to a high turnover rate throughout all the agencies and many clients end up underserved due to low staff rates. One more issue that I have noticed is the lack of communication and collaboration from other agencies. It appears that each agency is trying to do things by themselves rather than work together to address the common issue. If there is an agreed upon solution, it should be implemented across the board rather than only with the agencies that work with the individual(s) that found the solution. I’m sure there are other issues that I am leaving out or that I haven’t come across during my short time within the field and to be honest to list everything would turn this post into a mini dissertation. The last issue that I have found is that many people aren’t provided with the skills needed to maintain housing. During my time in graduate school NY started the Housing First initiative. It aimed to combat homelessness by fast tracking people into housing and making every new building have a percentage of apartments specifically for those in need of emergency housing. The issue here is that even though this is not a bad idea, it doesn’t address the underlying issues that led to homelessness in the first place. If a person doesn’t have the skills needed to live independently, they run the risk of ending back in the situation they were in. There are programs in place to help these individuals become “housing ready” and making it a requirement for housing could be a way to reduce the amount of people that suffer from chronic homelessness.

Even though NY attempts to approach housing in a way that provides people with housing there are still some places that it falls short. The unfortunate reality is that without addressing some of the issues that I laid out, homelessness will always be an issue in NYC. There needs to be a more in-depth look at the organizations and how they operate as well as more support all around for the people actually on the ground doing the work. There needs to be more insight and information provided to those in need to reduce the chances of them returning to the streets. If ending homelessness was truly the goal, some of these suggestions would be implemented but I am just one voice in a sea of people that may know better than I. I just urge the ones in charge to truly help those that they claim to want to help rather than try to do good work with the least amount of money as possible so they can retain the most amount of money for themselves.