Coalition For the Homeless

Reasons for Homelessness

Usually, the reason why homelessness occurs is due to the affordability in homes. New York City’s housing price has increased drastically throughout the years,  and since then, many people have lost their homes and were unable to pay rent.  During the same time while affordable housing became more difficult, the government lowered its funding towards already poor housing initiatives and stopped investing as much in creating affordable housing. The loss of low-cost housing was quickened after rent regulation laws became weaker. In order to address this problem, the government on every level has to increase its investments targeting affordable housing for homeless families. In order to maintain and provide protection to tenants, the rent regulation laws must be strengthened.

Homelessness also occurred because of the decline of Single-Room Housing.  Single-room occupancy (SRO) is a low-cost housing for poor adults, children, couples, and even families.  After WWII, these SRO became essential and there was an abundance of them as well.  There was approximately 129,000 SRO in NYC is 1960, however, within a decade, these houses became a last resort for many poor individuals, usually with mental health issues as well as ex-inmates.

Another reason as to why homelessness increased is due to the deinstitutionalization of health facilities.  Many of these mental health facilities released their patients who had mental illness.  When these individuals were released, they had nowhere to do, thus, they lived in Single-room housing.

The amount of available single-room occupancy started to decline, and more people were becoming homeless becaus they had nowhere else to go.

A Brief History and Goal

The Coalition for the Homeless is a nonprofit organization that has grown and altered to meet the needs of the NYC homeless due to the increase of New York’s crisis of homelessness.  Their goal is to help our fellow New Yorkers as well as ending this crisis.

Homelessness began more than thirty years ago.  Based on research done and first-hand experience, investing in permanent housing has been a beneficial and inexpensive tactic in the effort to reduce homelessness.

Due to homelessness, many successful housing-based policies were designed to address the homelessness crisis. More specifically, housing for those with special needs and disabilities was such a great success in New York, that it eventually spread throughout the nation. These solutions has been proven to reduce the amount of homelessness and costs less than other means.

Some proven housing-based policies include:

• Federal housing assistance: When it comes to solutions to reduce homelessness, federal housing programs are considered one of the most successful ways in doing so. The Housing Choice Vouchers or Section 8 vouchers are the two largest federal housing programs.  These federal housing programs are housing vouchers that allow lower-class families to rent a place that they desire due to a flexible subsidy that is able to change with the family’s income throughout time. Due to these flexible subsidies, the public housing and federal housing vouchers became some of the most successful options in reducing family homelessness and providing reassurance that the families are living in a stable home, rather than a shelter.

• Permanent supportive housing: In the 1980s, an alternative method, rather than federal housing, that has proven to be successful is the permanent supportive housing.  The permanent supportive housing is another cost-effective solution to help reduce homelessness.  This type of housing is a combination of affordable housing assistance with other support services for individuals with mental illness and other serious health problems. Studies have shown that this support system is much more cost-efficient than most emergency and institutional care.

• “Housing first”: The “housing first” approach is another proven solution developed in New York City to reduce homelessness, specifically, street homelessness.  This method piggybacks off of the permanent supportive housing.  After the individuals are placed into subsidized housing, they are then linked with support system in their site or in the community.  Studies have shown that once these individuals are put into aa stable home, their health problems improved.

The Coalition for the Homeless Impact & Solutions

The Coalition for the Homeless has this initiative called the Grand Central Food Program, which provides 1,000 warm, nutritious meals each night to homeless and hungry people on the streets of New York City.

One day in 1985, a homeless woman died of starvation in the Grand Central Terminal, and from that day on, the program was created.  Since then, the program became the largest mobile soup kitchen in New York.

Every night, three of the organization’s vans deliver healthy meals such as hot stew, bread, fruit, and juice or milk for individuals struggling in the streets.  In the colder weather, they also deliver coats, hats, gloves and blankets.

For 30 years, this program had been running and it has distributed more than six million meals and has never missed a single night.

Some Outcomes

3500 Men, female, and children are helped  each day

800 households per year saved from eviction

1000 meals delivered each night

12000 people per year were helped through Crisis Services

Shelters? Yes Or No.

For homeless people, shelter from different types of weather could be the difference between life or death. Homeless people have the legal right to be protected in shelter, which was won by the Coalition for the Homeless more than thirty years ago. Without this right, vulnerable homeless people would be at severe risk of death, disease and injury due to the harsh weather conditions they would eventually encounter.

Modern homelessness first emerged in the late 1970s. During this period thousands of homeless New Yorkers were forced to fend for themselves and find places to live/sleep in public spaces, such as streets or parks. At that time, hundreds of unsheltered homeless people died each year, a majority from hypothermia and other cold-related injuries.

In 1979, the founders of Coalition for the Homeless brought a class-action lawsuit, Callahan v. Carey, against the City and State of New York. The case was brought on behalf of homeless men and argued that there should be constitutional right to shelter New York.

The lawsuit pointed in particular to Article XVII of the New York State Constitution, which declared that “the aid, care and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state and by such of its subdivisions….” This article was adopted by New York voters in 1938, in the midst of the Great Depression, and has provided vital protection to impoverished New Yorkers.

In August 1981, after about two years of constant back and forth negotiations, Callahan v. Carey was settled, and the right to shelter homeless men in New York City was put into effect. Two years later, the Coalition brought another lawsuit, Eldredge v. Koch, which extended the right to shelter to homeless women as well. The same year, the Legal Aid Society brought a right-to-shelter lawsuit, McCain v. Koch, on behalf of homeless families with children.

The right to shelter protects thousands of homeless New Yorkers every day. The fundamental legal rights won by Callahan v. Carey and following cases assures that individuals and families in need have access to shelter from the dangers of outside elements as they regain stability in their lives and seek permanent housing.

The Coalition’s first legal victory via Callahan v. Carey, established New York City’s right to shelter for homeless adult men. This was a crucial stepping stone in establishing the victories to come giving the right to shelter homeless women and children as well. Since then, the Coalition has won a string of legal battles including securing medically appropriate housing for people living with HIV/AIDS and ensuring homeless in America the right to vote. The Coalition of the Homeless defends the hard-fought rights that they have secured for New York City’s poorest and most marginalized. Their large scale advocacy work has established a baseline of human decency and care for those most often marginalized, ignored and forgotten in our society.

The Coalition’s direct service programs bring lifesaving support to more than 3,500 homeless men, women and children each day. They provide emergency food and blankets, permanent housing, job training and special programs for homeless youth. Their mobile soup kitchen delivers hot nutritious meals to thousands of people living on the rough streets every night without fail. The Crisis Service programs the Coalition has created helped more than 10,000 people each year through a wide array of problems, ranging from lost IDs to impending eviction to mental health consultations. The Coalition for the homeless is the place where people who were turned away everywhere else can come and receive the compassionate and professional help they so rightly deserve.

The Coalition is out in the shelters and on the streets every single day, meeting with the homeless in need. New Yorkers knows that the doors of the Coalitions headquarters in Lower Manhattan are always open to them.