As a group, we feel that the feedback that we received from Professor Krinsky’s class. Some of the questions the audience asked include: How will homeless people pay even the low rent to live in a CLT if they don’t have a job? Would CLTs offer any social services to homeless people? Do homeless people need social services? Why does the city pay so much for these shelters and then not check on them? These are the questions that we are collectively trying to answer in order to edit our white paper draft and include in our popular education piece. We all have the task of looking for sources to use as evidence and background information to support our policy proposals. However, we still have to meet and discuss what direction our proposal should take, in terms of how radical or how conservative our proposal should be in order to be effective. Here is a breakdown of what we have been working on individually.

Riley looked at a survey of CLTs that Picture the Homeless did with City College in 2011, in order to answer the question we received in class about how homeless people can afford to live in a CLT on very low or no income. (http://www.picturethehomeless.org/PTH_National_CLT_Survey_Findings.pdf) They studied urban CLTs and MHAs all over the country to look at how they were founded and run. 70% of them housed formerly homeless people, and 18% had housing set aside specifically for housing the homeless. Most CLTs in the survey got money from places besides tenants paying rent. They got funding through government housing assistance programs, foundation grants, and renting out commercial space in the buildings. Some of them also charged higher rents to some tenants to subsidize other tenants. Through these methods, 65% were able to house families that made less than 20,000 a year. The study did not say anything specifically about families that have no income at all, so Riley is still looking for information on that. To try to answer the question we received in class about how homeless people can afford to live in a CLT on very low or no income, she also looked at a survey of CLTs that Picture the Homeless did with City College in 2011. (http://www.picturethehomeless.org/PTH_National_CLT_Survey_Findings.pdf) They studied urban CLTs and MHAs all over the country to look at how they were founded and run. 70% of them housed formerly homeless people, and 18% had housing set aside specifically for housing the homeless. Most CLTs in the survey got money from places besides tenants paying rent. They got funding through government housing assistance programs, foundation grants, and renting out commercial space in the buildings. Some of them also charged higher rents to some tenants to subsidize other tenants. Through these methods, 65% were able to house families that made less than 20,000 a year. The study did not say anything specifically about families that have no income at all, so she is still looking for information on that. Furthermore, we were also asked if CLTs would provide social services. In the 2011 survey, 35% of the CLTs they looked at did include social services, so obviously CLTs are not incompatible with social services. As for the larger question of how much homeless people really need services, this research review from Florida State found that programs where people received housing and were offered supportive services but not required to use them had better outcomes then programs that required people to graduate from specific treatment or education programs before receiving housing. (http://www.wmich.edu/hhs/newsletters_journals/jssw_institutional/institutional_subscribers/40.1.Groton.pdf) This points towards the idea that housing is more important than social services. She could not find any information that Picture the Homeless had put out about this question, so she will ask our community contacts, Ryan Hickey and Eric Goldfischer, about it at our next meeting. Riley initially took on the task of compiling a list of 10-20 cluster-site shelters, their building code violations, and the payments they have received from the city. She plans to ask them if it would still be useful to make that list, or if it would be redundant.

In addition, Brett and Annalise are looking into the conditions of the cluster sites and homeless shelters because they are so unsanitary that if the public knew about the conditions, they may see the shelters themselves as an issue. They will also research into methods of motivating the homeless with programs, such as those for job assistance, in order to include problems like those to our white paper. Before we can propose new programs to motivate the homeless, we need to educate ourselves on the current programs available from the Department of Homeless Services, and their website is the main source for that information.

Moreover, Omar will focus more on solidifying our knowledge of how CLTs work and what can be done to access, maintain and even expand them (Specific task forces, Third Party Transfer program, Alternative Enforcement Program etc.). He also found a lengthy article on the importance of integrating social equity with community land trusts, which could answer some of the questions presented to us. The links below should be helpful for us to consider when answering the questions from the other class.

1) http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/about/conplan/foreclosure/pdf/austincommtrust.pdf

2) “Testimony before the New York City Council Committee on Housing and Buildings and the Committee on Land Use by NYC Community Land Initiative” http://www.neweconomynyc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/City-Council-11-17-2014-Affordable-Housing-FINAL-1.pdf

3) http://cltnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2003-Integrating-Social-Equity-and-Smart-Growth.pdf

Omar will be analyzing these articles in order to share more information about how CLTs work, with the rest of the group. Our policy recommendation may include changing the system of CLTs in order to make them more effective to support those who are homeless.

Anna and I are researching the underlying causes and current homeless housing policies, while sharing that information with the group so that everyone is well informed about the problem before working on a solution. A goal for the upcoming weeks is to focus more on the solution and policy proposal after we pin down the causes of the problem. As for the useless services and expensive rent on shelters, families like the Podolskies and another man named Alan Lapes, who owned shelters himself and worked with them, have a big say in politics. They actually donated a lot to de Blasio’s campaign. (http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/don-big-bill-article-1.1448237) One reason the city keeps giving them money is because they give large campaign donations and they get to have a say in policy. This is a fundamental flaw of American democracy and there is not much we can do about it, but we can propose a new policy for communities and the people to have a louder voice, in terms of housing and how shelters are run. Anna thinks we need to gather more evidence and show how it is a huge block in getting anything done. She would advise a full-scale poor class strike and homeless protest/ march through rich neighborhoods, like occupy Wall Street. That would get media attention, which is very important to get their voices heard. This kind of protesting would cause the routine of everyday life to be disrupted and eventually the rich would be forced to respond. She is also working on a more radical approach for achieving political justice, and she is considering the political disadvantages that the homeless and low-income people are at. I suggest that we reread parts of David Harvey’s “The Right to the City” to consider what forms revolution can take because there may be ways to attract attention without sparking chaos in society. We should also look at Sam Stein’s article “La Guardia’s Heir,” in order to analyze de Blasio’s current policies and how progressive he is since he plays a large role in affordable housing policy that the homeless are directly affected by. These class readings can also add depth to our white paper, by providing the perspective of individuals who have written about issues, such as zoning and community planning, which impacts the homeless population as well.

Corrin has also been researching possible solutions and policy changes that we can propose as a group. She found the Eagle’s Nest program, in St. Louis, which establishes a transitional housing facility for single-homeless men and women, focusing on the area’s veteran population. Volunteer members from Eagle’s Nest who worked at facilities that serve homeless veterans and other single homeless individuals came to the conclusion that temporary, emergency accommodations and services are no the solution. Together, they wanted to propose a transitional housing program that will support “these individuals in their struggle to self sufficiency and more permanent housing” (p.10). Ninety percent of 128 homeless veterans surveyed voiced strong support for this program. In this transitional housing program would commit an individual to a treatment plan (for substance abuse) “with required counseling and other services necessary to become self sufficient in a period of 24 months” (p.13). (http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/Research/Student/GregoryQureshy.pdf) In addition, there are education and training workshops that are uniquely designed by themselves and their case worker. These procedures are intended to get each participant economically independent and self-sufficient. Corrin’s findings include that idea that our proposal can use parts of the program, which plan to achieve the following: 60% of the project participants will be successful in obtaining full time employment within the two-year scope and 50% of program participants will successfully maintain a saving’s account within 18 months in the program, with an initial deposit of at least $50. As a group, we will determine if we can apply any of this information into a New York Transitional Housing Proposal. The questions we face are: how come shelters are running so inefficiently? Some of our policy recommendations could be from this legal end of changing what social programs are available based on what the homeless population wants/does not want. There is another housing alternative called micro-housing, which Corrin wants to look into as well.

(http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2012/07/whod-live-here-micro-apartments-and-nyc-housing-needs/) Ultimately, we still have the task of fine-tuning one policy recommendation to compliment the work of Picture the Homeless.

Bethany has been looking more into CGCs, the MHA, and CLT to see how the three can work together to provide a solution for what we believe is the problem. Questions brought up at the presentation class taught us that we need more understanding of how exactly each of these work, mainly regarding the community involvement, and how homeless people can be both represented and accounted for. She attended the “Uneven Growth: Tactile Urbanism for Expanding Megacities” and was pleasantly surprised that many great urbanists too believe in the power and potential of PLT, and the exhibit had a great video and diagrams explaining how the process works and who is involved, as well as projections for the costs, which she thinks we need to include to be realistic about this plan. The next step is consolidating information and creating a coherent explanation of how this process works with relation to the homeless, as well as thinking about the public education piece, which she feel may involve a very simplified version of how this process works, maybe with clear simple colored diagrams. Getting the public to understand this “abstract” and “liberal” concept is the challenged, but we think it will be possible with just a change of perspective and presentation.

I, myself, will edit the current homeless policy section of the white paper that I worked on, since we want to include some of the long-term programs and services that the homeless are offered to get back on their feet. Simply having a place to stay for the night is not enough to prepare a homeless person for a job interview, so the shelters should provide job assistance and possibly even therapists to help the people through the process of getting their lives back on track. These suggestions may be included in our policy recommendation and our solutions to the problem. (http://usich.gov/plan_objective/pathways_to_employment/how_to_build_employment_programs_that_prevent_and_end_homelessness) I found this source to be helpful because it outlines plans to create employment programs that could benefit the homeless, who need jobs to afford rent and live in New York City. I am also going to work on editing the final white paper to make it more concise because for our popular education piece, we are planning to possibly publish an article outlining the topics discussed in our white paper, along with a few words from our community contacts, in order to educate the public about the issue of homelessness and the current shelter system we have now. Once we have an article written and edited by everyone in the group, we plan to send it to the NY Times, Picture the Homeless’ newsletters, the CCNY student newspaper, and several other publications to spread the information about homelessness and how it is such a huge problem in the city.

After we each fully understand and find sources about the questions that we should consider in our white paper, we plan to meet one day and sit down to edit our white paper draft as a group. We need to incorporate more long-term solutions that the homeless need in order to be motivated and rejoin the workforce because their ultimate goal is to achieve financial stability and never return to shelters. On Monday, April 13^th, half of our group will meet with Ryan and Eric to update them on what we have been working on so far and get their feedback/ input. They may also answer some of our questions of how CLTs work and share some of their policy recommendations, so we can take their work into account and build on it.