Housing Stability Plus
As part of its five year plan to end chronic homelessness and reduce dependency on shelter, the City last week rolled out Housing Stability Plus, a restructuring of rental assistance programs. A summary of the key elements follows, although many details are unknown or unclear. Care for the Homeless is working with our coalition partners to clarify many issues and to determine an advocacy strategy.

On June 23, 2004 Mayor Bloomberg announced the Department of Homeless Services’ plan Uniting for Solutions Beyond Shelter, a long term strategy with short and mid term objectives for reducing dependency on temporary shelter as the predominant response to homelessness. The plan is a nine point strategy which marks a shift from dealing with homelessness after the fact, to proactive, preventive initiatives aimed at reducing the number of individuals and families who become homeless and therefore require shelter.

	Overcome street homelessness;
	Prevent homelessness;
	Coordinate discharge planning, including childtren aging out of foster care, the correctional system, hospitals and community-based treatment facilities;
	Coordination of city services and benefits;
	Minimize disruption to families;
	Minimize duration of homelessness;
	Shift resources to solutions that work;
	Provide resources to vulnerable populations to access and afford housing;
	Measure and evaluate outcomes to replicate effective programs.

Housing Stability Plus is the first initiative advancing the agenda outlined in Uniting for Solutions Beyond Shelter. It creates one city-wide rental assistance program for homeless families (and couples), chronically homeless single adults in shelter, and parents awaiting housing in order to reunify with children in foster care. The City will redirect public housing and Section 8 vouchers that become available to families and individuals at-risk for homelessness. The major components of the initiative are as follows:

	End the priority for Section 8 and public housing through the shelter system;
	Create a time limited maximum five year subsidy that decreases each year by 20 percent;
	Requires all Temporary Assistance caseload members to be in compliance with requirements;
	The subsidy is based on welfare case size, not apt size, and will be less than provided under Section 8;
	Clients must accept aftercare services if offered;
	Shelter allowance and rental supplements will be paid directly to landlords.

The City has begun an extensive educational program for shelter staff. Although the proposal requires approval from the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the City has set a deadline of December 19 for clients who are already certified to locate an apartment or forfeit certification. An article from the New York Times follows.

October 20, 2004
Homeless Families Blocked From Seeking U.S. Housing Aid
By LESLIE KAUFMAN

Ending a decades-old policy, city officials said yesterday that effective immediately, homeless families in emergency city shelters would no longer be allowed to apply for federal rent vouchers or public housing, tools that had been used to move troubled families into more permanent housing.

Instead, the city is proposing to create a new program for helping homeless adults and families: a joint city, state and federally financed effort that would provide rental-assistance grants for up to five years, with the size of the grant shrinking each year.
The city acknowledges that the new strategy carries significant financial risks. If the state does not agree to its share of the financing, the city estimates that 3,500 additional families will wind up in shelters - adding significantly to the near-record number there today - 37,000 people, including 9,000 families. Although the city on average bears only a third of those costs, the $25,000 per family price tag for a year in a city shelter is significantly higher than the estimated cost of rental assistance.

Linda I. Gibbs, the city's commissioner of homeless services, said she had little choice but to search for an alternative to the use of federal vouchers. For starters, she said, the city has run out of available vouchers to give families, homeless or not. Also, she said, the program was making poor families believe that the fastest road to getting their own apartment was to become homeless. "We don't want people to think that the best way to get housing is to bundle their children up and take them to the E.A.U.," she said referring to the Emergency Assistance Unit, the Bronx office that is the entry point for the city's shelter system.
The city's announcement was also meant to address what it said was another unacceptable consequence of being too generous in giving federal vouchers to the homeless: the cheating of working poor families who needed the benefit as well, but who stayed in difficult housing situations nonetheless.

Steve Banks, the Legal Aid Society lawyer who has represented homeless families in their two-decade-old legal fight with the city, said the city's decision was a recipe for trouble. While praising the city for offering to put up new money for rental assistance, he said it would probably take too long to put the program in place, and in the interim there would be another influx of families into the city's shelter system. In past years, such surges would often leave the Emergency Assistance Unit overwhelmed, with families forced to sleep overnight on benches while they awaited placement in a shelter.
In addition, Mr. Banks said the temporary nature of the new aid would cause problems in the future. "The assistance assumes relocated families will be able to pay their own rent on a phased-in basis, and available evidence is the homeless families have significant barriers to employment," he said.

But Ms. Gibbs said that she was determined that the new subsidy would help people leave the shelters and achieve true self-sufficiency.

The first year of the proposed subsidy, she said, would be about $925 a month for a family of three, but would decline by 20 percent a year after that.

Officials said the city's proposed program would have numerous advantages over the current voucher subsidy. The money, for instance, would be available more quickly.

In addition, the new program would be available to individual homeless adults, couples without children and families who could not get their children out of foster care simply because they did not have permanent housing. This year, none of those people qualify under the federal program, and childless couples never have.

Of course, leaders in Albany have not yet signed on to the program. Ms. Gibbs said she is optimistic that the state will participate for numerous reasons. Since the state shares in the cost of the city's shelters, she said, it has an incentive to participate in a more effective, less expensive effort.

Ms. Gibbs said she had been discussing the proposal with officials in Albany for more than a week. She had heard no response to the plan yet, but had been promised that one would come promptly. Calls made to the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance after hours were not answered.

In either case, city officials say their hand has been forced by the near-nonexistent supply of federal rent vouchers. The program is now at 100 percent capacity, according to Doug Apple, general manager of the city's housing authority, and tens of thousands of people are on the waiting list.