Future of Homelessness Discussion

Homelessness is at record levels and on the rise in NYC, despite multiple administrations promising to address it. Recent press has raised the public profile of this “hidden” issue through investigations into terrible shelter conditions, which are extremely costly for taxpayers: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/28/hidden-city?currentPage=all, http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chapt=1. Meanwhile, the NYC Community Land Initiative, led by members of Picture the Homeless, is advocating for NY City and State to fund “Homes Not Shelters” https://indypendent.org/2014/02/25/homeless-folks-have-real-solutions-housing-crisis;http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/01/new_york_has_mo_1.php.– And are working together with people who have housing but are threatened by displacement to develop alternative proposals for need-based homes rather than market-driven housing and shelters. NYCCLI is trying to build a policy campaign around moving money from the shelter system into permanent homes, and to show how this could work in their people’s plan for East Harlem.  Can you help?

Zumana Miyfa, Annalise Armenta, Omar Nagaria, Riley Tinney, Anna Kornak, Corrin Chow, Bethany Herrmann, Brett Barshay

38 thoughts on “Future of Homelessness Discussion”

    1. I also found an interesting article following up on the conditions in the Auburn shelter–the shelter that Dasani and her family lived in– apparently they’re trying to transfer more people out now because of the increased attention from that article. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/nyregion/new-york-is-removing-over-400-children-from-2-homeless-shelters.html?_r=0

      After I read in one of these articles that homeless shelters cost twice what it would cost to pay rent for the homeless, I was wondering where all that money goes. I found these two articles that say that there are private companies making a lot of money off homeless shelters–it was really surprising to me. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/homeless-shelter-landlords-bet-big-on-de-blasio.html https://news.vice.com/article/how-private-companies-are-profiting-from-homelessness-in-new-york-city

      Last thing, we have an email conversation going with most of our email addresses, but we don’t have everyone. If you haven’t gotten an email, please email me so I can add you- tinneyriley@gmail.com

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  5. Ok team, your community contact will be Ryan Hickey, Housing Organizer with Picture the Homeless: http://www.picturethehomeless.org/. You can contact Ryan by email at: ryan@picturethehomeless.org. PTH does not have phones set up in their new office, yet, but once they do I’ll pass on the number. You will probably also be working with an organizer named Eric Goldfischer, from Banana Kelly, a housing and community development organization in the Bronx: http://www.bkcianyc.org/. PTH and Banana Kelly have been working together on a Homes Not Shelters campaign, which is where you will plug in. Please read up on these organizations and their work before meeting with them. When you are ready to set up a meeting, be in touch with Ryan directly, and copy me on the email. Have fun! And email me directly with any questions.
    Hillary

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  11. Since our project brief includes research on in-rem housing, we should all read this article about in-rem housing and how tenants in Harlem were able to buy apartments that they started out by renting them first. This has connection to the economics concerning the shelter industrial complex and affordable housing program.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/13/realestate/perspectives-in-rem-housing-sales-of-tax-foreclosed-buildings-to-tenants-to-rise.html

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  12. Since our project brief includes research on in-rem housing, we should all read this article about in-rem housing and how tenants in Harlem were able to buy apartments that they started out by renting them first. This has connection to the economics concerning the shelter industrial complex and affordable housing program.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/13/realestate/perspectives-in-rem-housing-sales-of-tax-foreclosed-buildings-to-tenants-to-rise.html

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  13. Project Update (3/10/15)

    Since the project is in its beginning stages, our group is still working on what each member wants to research concerning the topic and condensing all the suggestions and ideas we have into a few explicit goals.

    When some members (Riley and Anna) first met with Picture the Homeless, they wanted us to focus on three ideas. One aspect of the problem they wanted us to investigate was how much money the city is spending on housing shelters that aren’t only costly, but also contain numerous housing code violations. Another idea they proposed was to look into how the concept of eminent domains could be used to run such shelters more efficiently. The last point they wanted us to look into was how the city itself creates a complicated cycle of homelessness when it converts rent-stabilized housing into shelters, which inevitably puts more people on the streets. Moreover, the three focal points suggested by the organization don’t only give our group some source of direction, but they also reveal that a significant amount of research and field work is needed to fully understand the dilemma in New York City and be able to offer meaningful solutions.

    In terms of individual tasks, Riley was working on getting a list of 10-20 cluster-site shelters that have serious housing code violations from Ryan, which we thought would help us enumerate and analyze the various violations present in such shelters and how much money the city has paid the landlords. Ryan replied with three different lists he has, along with a link to a New York Magazine piece on the Podolsky family, and all the substandard housing they maintain for the city. (http://nymag.com/news/features/podolsky-homeless-shelters-2013-12/index6.html). It was interesting to see how much money has been spent by the city on homeless shelters (not surprisingly in the $10 millions) since 2010. Our next step is therefore to look at all these lists and resources and decide what we want to focus on and how we want to organize our investigation. One possibility is that we could concentrate on exploring the buildings managed by one company or family. We could also focus on a specific location like South Bronx and investigate the shelters and even interview some inhabitants (with the field work being divided equally among group members). The group will decide on this in the upcoming week.

    Annalise is going to be researching the differences between running a shelter versus affordable housing options, as far as how much each costs and what has worked in the past. The scholarship, statistics and historical content she finds will undoubtedly be useful for the project’s central theme.

    Zumana and Anna on the other hand will be researching background information about the history of homelessness in New York City, and what economic, political and social changes/influences contributed to the continuity of such a dilemma. They will also tie some of our readings to our project in order to have a more complete picture of the history of homelessness and how the homeless are affected by topics we discussed in class, such as zoning and urban planning.
    Additionally, Zumana wants to research more on the psychological effects of homelessness versus having a home.

    Below are some sources that may be useful for our white paper or community engagement piece.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/understanding-homelessnes_b_608211.html

    http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/the-catastrophe-of-homelessness/why-are-so-many-people-homeless/

    Corrin is currently looking into other alternatives to homeless shelters. For example, the link below is from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. This is a federal initiative which states that “permanent supportive housing is a proven, effective means of reintegrating chronically homeless and other highly vulnerable homeless families and individuals with psychiatric disabilities or chronic health challenges into the community by addressing their basic needs for housing and providing ongoing support.” Some types of housing the initiative addresses (and what we can certainly research and elaborate on) are “single-site housing, scattered-site housing and mixed housing”.
    http://usich.gov/usich_resources/solutions/explore/permanent_supportive_housing

    I myself am interested in researching how the concept of eminent domain works politically and economically, and in what ways could it hurt or help the management and quality of homeless shelters. More specifically, I want to highlight what views mayor De Blasio holds concerning eminent domain, and what plans does his administration have for the costly and flawed shelter system. I found these to be somewhat useful: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/08/8533321/bill-de-blasio-development-pragmatist & http://peoplesworld.org/new-york-city-facing-the-crisis-of-affordable-housing/. Of course this entails having to meet with Ryan and his team again to gain further insights about the relationship between eminent domain and the efficient management and maintenance of homeless shelters.

    By attending community board meetings, researching statistics/realities of homelessness in vulnerable neighborhoods, and analyzing efforts made by other cities, Brett and Bethany will examine the “cycle” of poverty that has plagued New York City and hopefully gain considerable feedback from the community.

    As stated previously, since the project isn’t fully developed, our group is still deciding where we want to focus on. In other words, the greatest challenge facing our group is essentially narrowing down our goals from all the ideas presented so that we have enough research and field work to ultimately form a community engagement product at the end of the semester.

    Overall, there has been a mutual understanding among all the members in the group, and everyone has a task to work with, tentatively. Moreover, everyone is expected to meet the Picture the Homeless at least once.

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    1. Omar and all,

      Thank you for the comprehensive and exciting update!

      I like how you are considering different and creative research strategies for exploring your questions and supporting/illustrating your argument- i.e. focusing on a specific location, building owner, or property management company, and articulating potential alternatives to current approaches to homelessness. The challenge of course with any focused case study is to situate it within the broader context, and to figure out what lessons are broadly relevant (vs. specific to that case). Please let me know if you need help with this.

      Don’t worry too much about getting the project design exactly right. At some point you just have to decide to go for it and see how it goes. It’s just as important for YOU to learn from the successes and challenges of this project as it is for the project itself to be successful.

      From what I can tell, it looks like you are working well with your contact and each other, drawing from the class readings and finding other helpful resources, and making good progress. Well done!

      Hillary

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      1. I was researching the role of community land trusts and eminent domain in New York City and found some really interesting information on whats taking shape.

        One comprehensive paper i found by Tom Angotti analyzes community land trusts in Cooper Square in terms of costs and benefits, and also compares the project with similar projects in California and Vermont. This case study will indeed help us write our white paper.

        http://nyccli.inq13.gc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2013/09/Angotti.Cooper-Square-CLT-case-study.

        I also found other papers and websites that delineate community land trusts and their relation to eminent domain.

        http://urbanomnibus.net/2014/04/the-value-of-land-how-community-land-trusts-maintain-housing-affordability/

        http://urbanomnibus.net/2014/04/the-value-of-land-how-community-land-trusts-maintain-housing-affordability/

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  16. Corrin and all,

    Thank you for the update- though I find it a little hard to tell who has written what. It seems like maybe Corrin wrote the intro and conclusion and everyone else contributed a personal update? If so, that’s really not the idea for this assignment. I know it’s hard to find time to meet in person, but one of the purposes of this assignment is precisely to encourage you to find some strategy for taking checking in, reflecting, and planning together on a regular basis- even if this is done online, by conference call, etc. The project updates posted to the site should be informed by the group’s work and progress, but should be written by and reflect the analysis of one team member only.

    As for the update itself! A few notes:

    -I appreciate the depth and breadth of your project design- homelessness is an issue that begs to be re-framed in terms of the problem and the possibilities. However, given that you have a limited amount of time to complete this project, my sense is that you might want to clarify your/your contact’s priorities for the project, and adjust/refocus/narrow down your activities accordingly- and in greater coordination with each other. Right now it feels a bit fragmented, which I’m sure will change as you get further along, but you might want to think strategically about how to go about it.
    -Although I think I know where PTH is coming from, I’m not clear where you’re going with the eminent domain questions. (i.e. “And since the compensation is an agreed price between both parties, it serves as an alternative to provide affordable housing.”… and whether eminent domain is better than shelters… neither is clear in the update). This is no doubt a challenging topic to investigate, but also exciting! I’d suggest following up with your contacts to clarify.
    -Your questions about how to compare strategies and apply lessons from other places to NYC and how to generalize from one shelter/neighborhood etc. to the city more broadly are great ones- we’ll talk more about this in class next week.

    Overall, nice work- keep at it!

    Hillary

    Reply

    1. Brett and all,

      Wow- sounds like a pretty incredible site visit, and like you have some excellent field notes (data) that you can use to articulate problem that your project is trying to address. Nice work! Please keep in mind that you should not be collecting any identifying information about anyone that you observe or interview, and you should make it clear to those people that their participation is entirely voluntary. If you have questions about this, please let me know. (I have emailed everyone about the human subjects research training and exam.) When it comes time to analyze your field notes from this and other visits, please see the resource page link called “spatial/cultural analysis.”

      It sounds like you’re starting to make some good progress on the “response” side of things, too. If you decide to focus on the CLT idea/NYCCLI, I can advise you on that, as I am extremely involved in that effort. In the meantime, the NYCCLI website has a wealth of information that you can review to get up to speed.

      There are a few things about your update that weren’t clear for me.

      1. I don’t see what is so compelling about the transitional housing proposal from 1997/St. Louis (i.e. how does it seem promising in relation to your analysis of the the problem and possibilities in NYC today?)- please clarify, otherwise I might suggest you abandon that path.

      2. Is Zumana looking into Housing Works the AIDS/Housing organization? If so, I can help you find more information on that, and even connect you with one of its founders, Eric Sawyer. Again, though, please make a clearer case for why you want to study it.

      I responded to your last update saying that this is an individual assignment and should not be on a google doc with different people contributing. It should be on your group project page, as its own post, and written by just one group member.

      Overall, though, it looks like you guys are doing excellent work. Keep it up!!!

      Hillary

      Reply

      1. Hey Professor Caldwell,
        I wanted to look into how Housing Works works in order to possibly incorporate it into the current housing policies that we have in New York portion of our white paper. I feel that accessibility to affordable housing is just as important as how much housing is actually available.

        Reply

  28. 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 13th, 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.

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