Posted on October 15, 2015 by Giselle Routhier The New York Times’ recent profile of the Commissioner of the Human Resources Administration – and longtime homeless advocate – Steve Banks and his crusade to end homelessness in NYC. Banks, the former Attorney-in-Chief of the Legal Aid Society, spent many years successfully litigating the right to shelter for homeless families and individuals. As the lawyer for Coalition for the Homeless for more than a decade, Banks tirelessly led the fight to uphold the right to shelter for homeless single adults under Callahan v. Carey and was responsible for the creation of the right to shelter for homeless families under a final judgment in Boston v. City of New York. In his new role, Banks has led HRA to institute a number of policies and programs aimed to prevent and reduce homelessness. These include vastly increasing legal services for low-income tenants facing eviction, revamping the public assistance sanction process, and getting the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) to launch an array of rental subsidy programs to help homeless individuals and families move from shelter into permanent housing. Banks’ decades-long experience in the trenches defending the rights of homeless families and individuals gave him unique insight into how to effectively improve HRA to better serve those in need: Mr. Banks’s detailed knowledge of the system has enabled him to see solutions that appear obvious in retrospect. He has insisted, for example, that the Human Resources Administration establish offices in the housing courts and that case workers there be empowered to reopen cash assistance cases. Previously, tenants in need had to go back to offices elsewhere. But Banks’ work is far from finished, and he is continuing to try to transform HRA into a more human and responsive agency – in addition to lobbying the State to step up its game in the fight against homelessness: Mr. Banks said he loves his time in government and has felt electrified by what can be accomplished. … If there is one frustration he admits to having, it has been the state’s reluctance to increase its contribution to housing for welfare recipients. To relieve some of the congestion in shelters, the city has had to fund new rental-assistance programs largely on its own. The state has not increased its shelter allowance since 2003, he said. Toward this end, he said, he has been lobbying Albany since he got the job. But the state has not budged on the allowance or on a large new allocation for supportive housing that advocates believe is the solution to the crisis. Still, Mr. Banks is confident he will eventually prevail. “I am an optimist,” he said with a big grin. “It took me 25 years to settle McCain, but now there is a permanent right to shelter. So give me time.”
