From Homeless Rights Project, Legal Aid Society:

The City of New York has recently obtained approval to implement its proposed "client responsibility" procedure for homeless families. This new policy requires that homeless families be ejected from shelter to the streets for at least 30 days for failing to comply with a long list of bureaucratic requirements such as missing appointments, having their welfare case closed or sanctioned, or failing to pay "rent" for shelter.

The Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless submitted a petition to New York State to modify these new rules, which are dangerous and counterproductive for homeless families in multiple ways:

1. Public assistance case closings and sanctions very commonly occur as a result of bureaucratic error, placing families and children at risk of being ejected from shelter for mistakes out of their control.
2. Even for the least serious violations, families are not offered a “cure provision” that would allow them to correct the violation and stay in shelter. Instead, they are given a mandatory 30-day “sentence” to the streets.
3. Perhaps most disturbingly, children are at risk of being placed in foster care if their families lose shelter. Under the newly-approved shelter ejection rules, children could be placed in foster care in violation of an existing law that prohibits children from being removed from families based on homelessness or poverty alone.
4. Furthermore, the rules do not adequately accommodate persons with disabilities or impairments, placing responsibility entirely upon them to document their impairment.

If approved, the petition would modify the regulation to:

• Protect homeless people with disabilities and impairments;
• Give homeless families an opportunity to correct minor violations to avoid being ejected (aka “cure provision”);
• Protect children in sanctioned families from being separated from their parents based on homelessness or poverty alone; and,
• Eliminate the provision that would allow families to be ejected from shelter based on Public Assistance case closures or sanctions

Additionally, the proposed modifications would also prevent re-applicant families, whom the district erroneously claims have other suitable housing available to them, from being improperly denied "immediate needs" shelter.

Please write to Governor Paterson and urge him to support this petition and grant changes to these punitive and dangerous new rules.

The regulation establishing these rules was initially established by emergency regulation in 1995 under former Governor Pataki, but was delayed in being implemented as a result of long-standing litigation. Fourteen years later, the regulation is still on the books and the State has now approved its implementation by the City.

Let Governor Paterson know that these rules are unproductive and detrimental to families and urge him to approve these changes proposed by the Legal Aid Society.

Attached are (1) a sample letter to the Governor; (2) a summary of the petition to change the rules regarding sanctions and denial of shelter to homeless families, and (3) the actual petition.

If you are able to send a letter to the Governor, would you please send me a copy by pdf, fax, or mail? I would also be happy to send your original letter to the Governor in a package that we will assemble.

Jane

Jane Sujen Bock, Staff Attorney
Homeless Rights Project
Legal Aid Society
199 Water Street
New York, NY 10038
212-577-3305
jbock@legal-aid.org
Fax: 646-616-4471