City Limits’ coverage of homelessness in New York City is supported by Trinity Church Wall Street.
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¿Por qué ha crecido tanto el número de neoyorquinos sin hogar, a pesar de que la ciudad gasta miles de millones en vivienda y servicios para las personas sin hogar? Una parte de la respuesta es que a lo largo de cuatro décadas se ha producido una desconexión fundamental entre las políticas de la ciudad sobre las personas sin hogar y la vivienda.
El fondo recibió 528 aplicaciones y hasta el 26 enero, menos de la mitad (216 aplicaciones) habían sido aprobadas. De los $27 millones de dólares disponibles para este fondo, menos de un millón de dólares ha sido desembolsado.
The same combination of streamlined pension fund investments and public subsidies that worked so successfully in the 1980s and early 1990s, needs to be reinvigorated to preserve the city’s enormous reservoir of privately-owned affordable housing.’
The fund received 528 applications and as of Jan. 26, less than half (216 applications) had been approved. Of the $27 million available for this fund, less than $1 million has been disbursed so far.
“Community Boards are currently being asked to do more with less,” wrote a task force of district managers and administrative staffers in a report released last month. “Especially in the last year-and-a-half, community boards have been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis.”
‘Thousands of units of supportive housing—affordable housing with onsite support services for people experiencing homelessness who face additional barriers to stability—are standing vacant for months while more than 70,000 New Yorkers remain in shelter and on the streets. This is the ultimate inefficiency.’
State leaders—including Kathy Hochul and one of her gubernatorial rivals, Tom Suozzi—are at odds over bills that would override local “exclusionary zoning” rules that prohibit homeowners from renting accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on their property.
“This comes down to the inefficiencies of government,” said Councilmember Crystal Hudson, who represents Brooklyn’s 35th District. “We need to create systems that work for people, not against them.”
Why has the number of homeless New Yorkers grown so much, even as the city spends billions on housing and homeless services? One part of the answer is that over four decades there has been an ongoing and fundamental disconnect between the city’s policies on homelessness and housing.
CityFHEPS, the city’s rental subsidy, can be a life-changing resource for thousands of families and individuals and a crucial intervention for addressing homelessness, stakeholders say. But the administrative process for voucher holders to get approved for permanent housing is an onerous one that undermines the program’s successes.
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