Over the last two months, more than 62,000 New Yorkers weighed in on a series of questions to guide the new mayor’s priorities. One of the questions was “How can city government make your neighborhood safer?”
What do you think the most popular answer was? More police? More mental health responders? Actually, it was housing. Specifically, New Yorkers believe that creating neighborhood safety requires the city to “build affordable housing, protect renters and reduce homelessness.” The NYC Speaks survey, of which Trinity Church Wall Street was one of several funders, showed housing to be the top choice across every income group. How can we make this recognition by New Yorkers — that true safety and security for all of us requires a stable place to live — a reality?
In February, Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul announced a plan aimed at reducing crime on the subways that would provide some support to homeless people who take shelter in New York City subways. However, the mayor and the governor’s plan doesn’t go far enough to ensure that homeless people removed from the subways will have a safe place to go in the short term, or address the severe shortage of affordable housing in the long term. Nor does the city’s current effort to clean out encampments.
Every night, more than 48,000 New Yorkers sleep in Department of Homelessness (DHS) shelters — including close to 19,000 single adults and more than 15,000 children. But a far greater number of New Yorkers face homelessness. The DHS numbers don’t include people who live doubled up, who couch surf or who take shelter with faith organizations — or in overnight drop-in shelters or those designated for youth and domestic violence survivors.
Because there is no single solution to this crisis, the administrations’ plan must be multifaceted. First, it must expand the number of Safe Haven beds, a “low-threshold” type of transitional housing with fewer requirements than traditional shelters. It is nearly impossible to meet the needs of individuals while they are living on the streets. Safe Havens provide an immediate, clean and secure place to sleep indoors while caseworkers help to find permanent housing and provide essential support.
Second, New York needs to take advantage of existing resources and prioritize converting defunct hotels into deeply affordable and supportive housing. The conversion of the Paramount Hotel in Midtown Manhattan provides a perfect opportunity to both expand the number of Safe Haven beds and the number of permanent housing units. Once completed, this former hotel could include more than 130 Safe Haven plus 510 new units of supportive housing available to homeless or formerly homeless individuals.
In the long-term, New York City also needs to better align housing and homelessness planning and policy across relevant agencies to ensure a coordinated and competent approach to meet the linked challenges of affordable housing and homelessness. In the year that ended last June 30, families stayed more than 500 days on average in shelters before they were able to find permanent housing. Caregivers and children deserve better. We’re calling on New York City to streamline the application process for housing vouchers and reduce bureaucratic barriers to using them by centralizing operations, addressing staffing shortages, improving staff training and communication and speeding up landlord payments.
If New York City takes these key steps now, together, we can make significant progress towards solving the crisis of homelessness and increasing public safety as well. Sixty-two thousand New Yorkers are not wrong: Mayor Adams must listen to his constituents and work to address New York’s housing and homelessness crisis as a pillar of their public safety agenda.
De la Torre is the managing director of housing and homelessness at Trinity Church Wall Street.
