Human Services News

NYC.gov

In a keynote address to the National Alliance to End Homelessness Annual Conference in Washington, DC, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced two new efforts to build on New York City's historic efforts to solve homelessness.

New York City will reinvest $10 million that the City has saved because of lower shelter populations to give families who have left shelters, but who are at high-risk of returning to shelter, flexible services to promote housing stability.

Mayor Bloomberg also announced that the Department of Homeless Services has identified 73 locations - under highways, next to train trestles and on City streets - where some 350 homeless men and women in groups of four or five have set up makeshift shelters.

As an extension of its street outreach work, the Department of Homeless Services will humanely, respectfully, but firmly work to get these men and women to enter supportive housing, enroll in treatment programs, or go into shelters.

Mayor Bloomberg also detailed the Administration's progress in reducing homelessness by two-thirds by 2009, noting that there are almost 20 percent fewer individuals and 30 percent fewer children in shelters since 2003.

In addition, the City's recent street count found 13 percent fewer individuals living on the streets and in other public spaces this year compared to last.

The following is the text of Mayor Bloomberg's address as prepared for delivery to the National Alliance to End Chronic Homelessness Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

In fact, it's so precious that both political parties rarely use it, especially when they're talking about each other.

"And in the spirit of truthfulness, let me say that there is truly no one who does more, day in and day out, to end homelessness in America than you do, Nan.

"Now, there are those who say that ending homelessness is just a dream.

I see hundreds of men and women from every corner of this nation who have devoted your lives to hastening the day when all of our fellow Americans can have what so many simply take for granted: The stability, security, and precious sense of personal worth that comes from waking each morning in our own beds, in our own homes.

"To rid our society of homelessness, we must first liberate ourselves from the chains of conventional wisdom, from the fetters of political correctness, from the tyranny of the advocates and their unwillingness to admit that we're ever making progress, and from the opportunism of those who employ divisive and politically charged rhetoric to score easy points.

We saw New York's best days still ahead.

But to get there, we recognized that we would have to defy the conventional wisdom that our greatest problems-continuing to reduce crime, fostering new economic growth, improving our schools, and creating affordable housing-were simply beyond solution.

"The result: Today our economy is strong.

"The conventional wisdom also said that there really wasn't much we could do to improve our failing public schools.

But by instituting accountability and standards by focusing on line managers in individual schools (called principals), by increasing teacher salaries 33% over the last five years, and by running the system for the students and not the employees, we've lifted student graduation rates and test scores, and begun to close the racial achievement gap in our classrooms.

"Even as housing values have soared, we've launched the biggest municipal affordable housing initiative in the nation's history.

"Its tenets were that street homelessness was essentially a permanent fact of urban life, and that homeless families were deeply troubled and needed long-term counseling and support before they were 'housing ready.'

"As a result, the city's over-riding response to homelessness had been creating emergency shelters.

Over a period of months, the homeless shelter population swelled to more than 38,000 men, women, and children-the largest in our history.

If there was sufficient capacity to meet demand, no matter how large the demand was, then the system must be working.

We invested in the providers that succeeded, and stopped giving free passes to those that did not.

We also made it clear to shelter clients that they had to take greater responsibility for finding permanent housing, too-or face consequences, including having to leave City shelters.

Over the past few years, I know, many of you in cities around the nation have taken part in processes just like that.

"And in the spring of 2004, Linda and her staff presented me with the result: A strategy for ending homelessness in New York City within ten years.

It sets out comprehensive goals and strategies: For reducing street homelessness; For dramatically increasing supportive housing; For continuing to help homeless individuals and families move out of shelters and into permanent housing; And, most importantly, for preventing homelessness before it occurs.

"In that spirit, over the past three years, we've conducted an annual census of the city's street homeless population.

It's our way of getting the facts about who the homeless are, and where they are.

"We use that information in directing the outreach efforts that focus on getting people off the streets and into housing.

"I can tell you our census makes some "advocates" in our city uncomfortable-maybe because keeping numbers vague serves their institutional needs.

"Today, I want to announce that we're launching the next major step to end street homelessness in New York.

Over the past six weeks, our newly named DHS Commissioner, Rob Hess, and his team have identified the 73 sites around our city where some 350 homeless men and women-usually in groups no larger than four or five-have set up makeshift shelters under highways, next to train trestles, and on our streets.

"Our motive is the simple belief that every human being deserves better than to sleep on the streets.

"We're also continuing to move forward with an historic commitment to dramatically increase the stock of supportive housing with on-site social services essential for those who need extra help to get their lives back on track.

A key element of it is a $1 billion partnership we reached with the State of New York last November.

"Supportive housing costs no more than the homeless shelters, emergency rooms, and prison cells that for too long have been the refuges of last resort for too many homeless men and women.

"And the dividends it pays in improved quality of life for the formerly homeless and for the community as a whole are rich indeed.

"Supportive housing reduces reliance on emergency shelter.

It offers homeless clients five years of rental assistance-with the understanding that, as they re-establish themselves in permanent housing, there will be a 20% 'step-down' in their rental assistance grants each year.

Fostering accountability and self-sufficiency is at the heart of our approach to ending homelessness.

Since the program began in late 2004, more than 7,400 men and women in City shelters have signed leases for permanent housing-more than 6,700 of them families with children.

"Not quite two years ago, we launched a program called 'HomeBase' in six communities in our city where residents have historically been at the greatest risk of becoming homeless.

In fact, these communities have traditionally accounted for a quarter of all family shelter residents.

"To date, HomeBase has helped almost 4,000 men, women, and children stay out of shelter and in their homes.

"Now, building on that success, we're going to dramatically expand such targeted prevention.

"We can begin to make this reinvestment because today, the population in City homeless shelters is down 19% from its peak three years ago.

That's more than any other Administration in history accomplished in one term-and that's made all the more remarkable by the steep jump in homelessness we saw in our first months in office.

"It also gives me enormous pleasure to say that the city's old Emergency Assistance Unit-the most visible emblem of the failures of the past and the bankruptcy of the conventional wisdom about homelessness-was permanently shuttered on Independence Day, two weeks ago.

We also need a partnership with the Federal government, too.

"And because many of you will be paying visits on Capitol Hill while you're in Washington this week, let me close with a few words of strong support for the legislative agenda of this National Alliance.

"Our Administration joins you in working to ensure full funding of Section 8 vouchers, and to oppose block-granting Section 8, because that may not give us enough funding to meet rising costs.

"Our city's affordable housing initiative also depends strongly on continued Federal support for public housing, for Section 202 and 811 funding, and for a program that represents federalism at its best: Community Development Block Grants.

"Over the past few years, in New York and across the nation, the march of events-a march with this National Alliance in the vanguard-has begun to replace dependency with self-sufficiency, to supplant false promises with real hope And to redefine homelessness as a temporary condition, not a permanent and debilitating way of life.