End of subsidy threatens the homeless

Vivian Torres has been homeless before. And the single mother could soon be again.

A housing subsidy helped Ms. Torres, currently working part-time, and her 12-year-old son escape the city shelter system in 2009 and land a one-bedroom apartment in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. But her subsidy expires at the end of this month, she's still searching for a full-time job and the city has killed the subsidy program.

“The scariest part of it all,” said Ms. Torres, whose job at a domestic violence center pays $10.67 an hour, “is if I go back [to a shelter] now, there would be no way out.”

Seven years ago, Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged to slash homelessness by two-thirds by 2009. However, after a series of missteps, course corrections and budget cuts, the city has abandoned its subsidy programs, including Advantage, the program that helped Ms. Torres.

Programs ignore history, critics say

For the first time in decades, the city has no transitional housing support for the homeless and no plans to create any. And as the shelter population hovers around record highs, advocates predict homeless figures will climb higher yet.

“The Department of Homeless Services seems to be operating in a time warp,” said Steven Banks, the attorney in chief for the Legal Aid Society and lead lawyer in homeless family litigation against the city since the 1980s. “Its policies fly in the face of everything we've learned in the last 30 years.”

The Department of Homeless Services reports 9,760 families are in city shelters, up 5% since May, the month after Advantage ended. Between March and August, the average length of stay of families at shelters ballooned to 326 days from 278, a 17% increase, though the median length of stay dropped.

In 2004, the Bloomberg administration charted a radical new course in homeless policy. It began denying federal housing vouchers and public housing priority to homeless families—a vast departure from the Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani administrations—and introduced a rent subsidy encouraging self-sufficiency.

The new program, Housing Stability Plus, provided a time-limited subsidy whose value declined by 20% a year. Designed to ease recipients off benefits, it did not work. By 2007, record numbers of homeless families were entering the shelter system. The city abandoned Housing Stability Plus that year and replaced it with Advantage, which provided federal rent vouchers worth up to $1,000 a month to homeless people who found jobs.

The program was a lifesaver for Ms. Torres, covering 60% of her $1,070 rent. But its strict two-year time limit was not long enough for many families who struggled to find jobs that paid enough to pay New York City's high rents. Fueled by the recession, homelessness hit a record high in 2010. The 113,553 people in city shelters that year was 39% more than when Mr. Bloomberg took office, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

“A revolving door”

“Unfortunately, Mayor Bloomberg experimented with deeply flawed subsidy programs that became little more than a revolving door for thousands of families and children,” said Patrick Markee, a senior policy analyst with the coalition.

But Seth Diamond, the Homeless Services commissioner, rejects advocates' calls to use federal vouchers, which he called “uncertain,” and to give the homeless priority for public housing. He is instead focusing on “accountability and self-sufficiency.”

“The best resource, the most reliable resource, even in the face of difficult economic times, has been employment,” Mr. Diamond said.

The department has helped nearly 6,800 homeless men and women find work this year, up from 5,439 during the same time period in 2008. The average hourly wage for those jobs is $8.65.

“I applaud the Department of Homeless Services' efforts to connect those in shelters with employment,” said Bronx Councilwoman Annabel Palma, who chairs the council's General Welfare Committee. “However, these aren't the types of jobs that will lift people out of poverty.”

In fact, 29% of families currently living in city shelters have at least one person working. But those who aren't in shelters and who are just scraping by have ways to stay in their homes, Mr. Diamond said.

“There are thousands of people in New York City who live in apartments every day on entry-level wages,” Mr. Diamond said. “They do it by living with other family members or sometimes taking in friends who have income.”

Ms. Torres, though, has no family in New York. She remains hopeful that she'll be able to support herself.

“Cramming people into an apartment like a pack of hot dogs is not a valid excuse,” she said at a job fair last week. “That's not an example I want to show my son.”