As worsening political polarization in our nation continues to dominate the public dialogue – evidencing deep schisms in how our society views issues as basic as public welfare and the role of government – New Yorkers benefit from living in a state that has clarified and codified its position on these issues in its constitution. Article 17 of the New York State constitution plainly states that “[t]he aid, care and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state and by such of its subdivisions, and in such manner and by such means, as the legislature may from time to time determine.”
This provision makes clear that it is the responsibility of government to proactively address poverty.
Ensuring that the people of New York have access to the most fundamental requirements of survival – a safe place to sleep at night, sufficient food, access to health care – is not just a constitutional obligation. It is a practical obligation, to ensure that our society can properly function day to day; and it is a moral obligation, to protect and foster our core humanity. However, if we allow to continue unchecked the catastrophic shortage in affordable housing, the lack of access to quality voluntary mental health care, and the difficulty in accessing the type and amount of emergency shelter and services that people need, New York will increasingly be defined not by its ingenuity, pragmatism, and compassion, but by the scale of deprivation and suffering it allows.
This is perhaps the most fundamental challenge currently faced by Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul – especially at a time when, because of the rapid arrival of so many asylum seekers and other new arrivals from foreign nations, New York has been experiencing a major humanitarian crisis against a backdrop of an ongoing and worsening crisis of mass homelessness. Although the Mayor and Governor have the authority and the resources to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need, their actions, statements, and policies have illustrated an alarming retreat from these constitutional, practical, and moral obligations.
To summarize the most basic measures of Mayor Adams’ and Governor Hochul’s performance in addressing the crises: there are now more people experiencing homelessness, there is less affordable housing available for those who need it most, and there are more people in desperate need of social services and mental health care than at any time in recent memory.
Even apart from the increase in the shelter census attributable to the influx of new arrivals1 that began in March 2022, the number of longer-term New Yorkers sleeping in shelters each night increased by more than 10,000 people (or 19 percent) – from 55,702 to 66,209 in April 2024. There are now roughly 350,000 people in our city without homes.
At a time when the vacancy rate for low-income apartments is approaching functional zero, Mayor Adams seems to be putting all of his eggs in one basket: City of Yes – a plan that currently contains no requirements for deep affordability to create housing for the people who need it most. It is simply another example of the City and State clinging to the fiction that “trickle-down” housing policies work.
Instead, Mayor Adams’ and Governor Hochul’s response to these crises are defined by their:
Mayor Adams frequently touted the City’s success in quickly adding tens of thousands of new shelter beds for the new arrivals – which did of course require significant effort and coordination, and for which the City deserves credit. But given that Mayor Adams added those beds because he was legally obligated to do so under New York’s Right to Shelter – and given that he was not only in court aggressively seeking to relieve himself of that very obligation, but also imposing limits on shelter placements for new arrivals at the same time he was taking his public bows – any approbation for those additional beds should perhaps be tempered.
The data show, however, that City agencies made some welcome progress in FY23 in increasing access to permanent housing for homeless households, but the increases are modest and nowhere near the scale required to reverse the decades-long slide into catastrophic mass homelessness in New York City.
Governor Hochul’s performance over the past year was profoundly disappointing, and seemed primarily focused on ensuring that the rest of New York State played as small a role as possible in helping accommodate and resettle the new arrivals. This past year has thus been a period of lost opportunity, as the tens of thousands of households arriving here seeking to make New York their home could have and should have been welcomed to enrich our community, add to the economic and cultural base of the state, and help fill some of our roughly 460,000 unfilled jobs.
The main findings of State of the Homeless 2024 are summarized below.
Because there were so many issues involving shelter capacity, access, conditions, and exits in the past year, State of the Homeless 2024 is limiting its focus to those main topics. This is not to suggest that there were not critical issues around unsheltered homelessness. In fact, most of the problems highlighted in last year’s State of the Homeless 2023 are ongoing and are issues that we plan to address in future reports.
Every year, the Coalition for the Homeless releases its State of the Homeless report in order to present an accurate summary of the true scope of homelessness in New York City, to provide some context for the crisis, and to forward recommendations to the City and State for addressing the situation.
Understanding the “true scope of homelessness” in New York City, however, is not a simple matter, as homelessness takes many forms, and people do what they need to do to survive. Some of those survival strategies are visible and quantifiable, but many are less so. Counting the number of people without homes has therefore always been a tricky proposition.
However, since New York City has a legal Right to Shelter for all homeless individuals and families, and since the City is obligated to track how many beds it is providing and how many people are sleeping in those beds each night, the municipal shelter census has provided relatively accurate and comparable data over the past four decades. But it is critical to remember that the shelter census does not represent the total number of people who are homeless in NYC. It represents only the number of people in shelters at a given time.2 Because of the legal requirement that the shelter system must expand to meet the level of need, the shelter census serves as a useful proxy for tracking the trajectory of the homelessness crisis over time – but again, it must not be confused for a representation of the full scope of homelessness in NYC. That number must include those who are sleeping unsheltered (in the myriad ways people do) and those who are homeless but sleeping temporarily doubled- or tripled-up in overcrowded conditions with friends or family.
While the City provides generally reliable figures for the number of people sleeping in shelters, estimates of people sleeping unsheltered or doubled-up are harder to come by. However, it would be reasonable to estimate that, all told, there are currently at least 350,000 people in NYC without homes.
There is, unfortunately, no reliable estimate of the number of those sleeping unsheltered. The City’s annual HOPE survey mandated by the Federal government underestimates the true size of this population as its methodology is flawed and, as it is a point-in-time survey, it does not capture the very dynamic nature of unsheltered homelessness. Whatever the figure reported by the City,3 we can safely assume the true number of homeless people sleeping unsheltered to be far higher.
The exact number of people living doubled-up or tripled-up is also difficult to determine precisely, but could be estimated to exceed 200,000 given that the American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample analyzed by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition estimated the number of people living doubled-up throughout New York State to be 299,162 in 2021, and PIT surveys indicate that NYC had about 89 percent of the state’s share of homelessness in 2021.
Thus, when we talk about “the true scope of homelessness in New York City,” the figure we should keep in mind is not the HOPE estimate, nor is it the roughly 89,906 people in shelters operated by the Department of Homeless Services (“DHS”) and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”) in April 2024, which is the number that had been historically tracked and cited. It should include everyone who would (and should) be housed if not for the catastrophic lack of affordable housing in New York, a lack that is exacerbated by official neglect toward, underinvestment in, and bureaucratic obstacles hindering access to resources for people in need.
The figure bears repeating: More than 350,000 people in our city are currently without homes. That sobering statistic helps put into context the dire need for policy solutions that do more than tinker around the edges, and that are targeted specifically to those most in need. Yes, New York’s obscenely high housing costs impact every person who lives here, rich and poor alike. But if history has taught us one thing, it’s that “trickle down” housing policies do not work. Relief must be targeted where it is needed most.
This is evidenced in the DHS historical shelter census, where we see that the only time the census leveled off for a sustained period was in the years following Mayor Koch’s commitment of a full 10 percent of his affordable housing plan specifically for homeless households. And more recently, we saw the precipitous decrease in the shelter census while the pandemic-era eviction moratoria were in effect. The conclusion that we can reduce homelessness by 1) helping homeless people access housing and 2) keeping at-risk households in their homes should not really come as a shock. But of course, the solutions to mass homelessness have never really been in question; only the City’s and State’s willingness to implement those solutions is.
Given that the unchecked growth in mass homelessness within New York and the increase in the number of new arrivals coming here from other nations have created a compounding crisis that has played out most dramatically in the shelter system, this report places particular focus on how the Mayor’s and Governor’s actions have impacted that system and those who rely on it to survive. But while the legal Right to Shelter is fundamental to New York’s approach to homelessness, the end goal is, and must always be, to help all without homes stabilize in permanent housing – whether they are currently in shelters or surviving in some other makeshift way, and whatever their country of origin or immigration status. Because, in one of the richest cities in the world, and in a state where the constitution asserts the government’s responsibility for addressing need, there is simply no reason for anyone to be homeless.
State of the Homeless 2024 will examine the performance of Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul in the areas of shelter capacity, access, conditions, and exits.
Over the past year, New York’s legal Right to Shelter has been tested as never before. Even as 2023 began, the city had been experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of people in need of shelter as a result of the expiration of pandemic-era eviction protections and the rapid increase in the number of new arrivals coming to NYC. The increased inflow into shelters was unfortunately not matched by adequate efforts to increase the number of people exiting shelters into stable housing. And so, while 2023 started with roughly 80,000 people sleeping in shelters each night, by December the figure had increased by 68 percent, to more than 134,000.
Note: The chart above goes back only to 2019, as that is when the City began providing consistent and comparable data on all shelter systems.
The City did not begin providing disaggregated census data on the new arrivals placed into City shelters until July 2023. In the roughly 15 months leading up to July 2023, the increase in the number of both new arrivals and homeless longer-term New Yorkers in shelters is reflected only in the surge in the DHS shelter census.
Mayor Adams’ administration deserves credit for quickly adding so much shelter capacity in their efforts to remain compliant with New York’s legal Right to Shelter – efforts that received little support from Governor Hochul (which will be discussed in more detail below).
In order to create more emergency beds for the large number of new arrivals – thousands of whom were bused to NYC by Texas Governor Greg Abbot in order to force a change in national immigration policy, score political points, and shift the cost of providing emergency relief to people in need from his state to New York – the Mayor created a somewhat ad hoc system of shelters for new arrivals operated by DHS, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”)4, NYC Health and Hospitals (“H+H”), NYC Emergency Management (“NYCEM”), and the Department of Youth and Community Renewal (“DYCD”). Roughly half of the new arrivals have been placed in shelters operated by DHS (mostly in “sanctuary hotels”), and the other half are in crisis shelters (HERCCs, respite centers, etc.) operated by the other City agencies.
The large number of new arrivals coming to NYC created shelter capacity concerns throughout 2023. But, as seen in Figure 1.2, the number of new arrivals entering the shelter system each week has dropped to lower levels in 2024 – about half the rate seen in the second half of 2023.
While we cannot predict the future, what is known is that, at the time of the writing of this report, the City reports that more than 200,000 new arrivals have come to NYC since March 2022, and that by the end of April 2024, 65,731 were in shelters operated by the City.
While the influx of new arrivals was dominating public dialogue around the need for shelter and services throughout 2023, the number of homeless longer-term New Yorkers in shelters was getting less attention, even though it also increased rapidly from a level that was already alarmingly high. The number of homeless longer-term New Yorkers in shelters was 55,702 in March 2022, just before the influx of new arrivals began, and by April of 2024 had increased by 19 percent, to 66,209.
This increase is all the more alarming because it comes on the heels of two years of decreasing shelter censuses that resulted from pandemic-era protections which demonstrated that tools like rental vouchers and eviction protection work to help families and individuals access or remain in permanent housing.
The responses by Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul to the shelter capacity crisis were focused more on seeking to reduce government obligation than on rising to meet the challenge. As stated above, it has to be acknowledged that the City did quickly bring tens of thousands of new beds online at significant effort, coordination, and expense. But it also must be noted that the City was legally required to do so – and concurrently tried very hard to relieve itself of that legal requirement. The Mayor’s and Governor’s responses to the crisis can generally be divided into five broad categories:
Rather than addressing the shelter capacity crisis through the obvious steps of helping more shelter residents move into permanent housing and increasing homeless prevention efforts, Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul attempted to dismantle New York’s legal Right to Shelter established in 1981 under the Callahan consent decree. On May 23, 2023, the City submitted a letter to the court requesting permission to submit a motion to modify Callahan – effectively seeking to end the City’s obligation to provide shelter to all homeless adults without minor children. The Mayor’s rationale was based upon two faulty premises: first, that the City needed more flexibility than allowed under Callahan in responding to the influx of new arrivals; and second, that removing or limiting Callahan would result in fewer new arrivals coming to New York.
Neither reason was defensible, as the City and advocates had already been engaged in good-faith negotiations for more than a year about how to provide shelter quickly for the new arrivals. The City in fact had all the flexibility it needed to utilize facilities that were not strictly compliant with Callahan rules, but that still kept people safe.
The second assertion, that eliminating the Right to Shelter would stop the inflow of new arrivals, failed to acknowledge New York’s global status as a city that for hundreds of years has attracted people from all over the world because of economic opportunity, kinship networks, cultural diversity, and tolerance.
Governor Hochul fully and formally supported the Mayor’s effort to eviscerate Callahan, while also continually asserting that the State is not a party to the consent decree. Interestingly, in August 2023, State Attorney General Latitia James withdrew from representing the State in the challenge to Callahan – an extremely rare move for an AG. Governor Hochul thus had to engage a private law firm to represent the State in the action.
The City revised its request to the court twice, with the most recent request outlining a modification to Callahan that would have impacted both new arrivals and longer-term New Yorkers. Under the last proposed modification, the City argued it should condition shelter on public assistance eligibility, which would have meant that low wage workers and those receiving disability benefits could have been turned away from shelter. The result of such a change would have been a massive increase in the number of people relegated to sleeping on the streets, in the transit system, and in other public spaces.
The parties entered into court-supervised mediation in October 2023, and signed a stipulation of settlement on March 15, 2024 that preserved the core elements of the consent decree, but allowed the City to temporarily place some conditions on the provision of shelter to new arrivals. Notably, the State did not sign the settlement agreement.
In the ten-month period during which the legal challenge was taking place, the City was frequently out of compliance with Callahan.
For example, at the end of July 2023, the City failed to make enough shelter beds available for new arrivals seeking assistance at the Arrival Center established by H&H in the Roosevelt Hotel, resulting in dozens of people sleeping on the sidewalk for several nights. The situation – widely covered by the press – precipitated an emergency court conference, which resulted in the City quickly putting more shelter beds online. At the time of the incident, there was in fact sufficient capacity in the DHS shelter system to provide the needed beds. Some publicly questioned whether the Mayor had intentionally allowed new arrivals to sleep unsheltered in public in order to send a message that would deter more new arrivals from coming to NYC.
The shortage of shelter beds for adult new arrivals created a state of ongoing noncompliance that delayed the Callahan settlement process. Throughout the winter of 2023-2024, the City maintained that it simply had no more beds available for adult new arrivals and, given that the continued pleas to the State to help the City find 1,000 more shelter beds fell on deaf ears, the City relied on “overflow sites” – facilities similar to drop-in centers, without beds or showers, where new arrivals waited for as long as two weeks for a bed. As a result, the March 2024 Callahan stipulation of settlement required the City to cease using such drop-in centers as shelters by April 8, 2024. Since then, constant pressure has been required to force the City to bring on more capacity needed for compliance, as the City was unable to comply by April 8th.
The City has also only just begun implementing the new rules under the settlement agreement defining shelter stays for adult new arrivals, and the Coalition, Legal Aid Society, and other advocates are carefully monitoring the City’s actions.
At the same time that the City and State were attempting to dismantle the legal Right to Shelter through the courts, Mayor Adams was able to use his executive authority to implement time limits on shelter placements for new arrivals in order to push people out of shelters. In July 2023, the Mayor imposed 60-day limits on shelter placements for single adult new arrivals, which in September were reduced to 30 days. Then in October, the City announced it would impose 60-day limits on shelter placements for new arrival families with children in non-DHS shelters – a move that led to an outpouring of outrage and concern from advocates, providers, and elected officials because of, among other things, the severely destabilizing effect on children.
The shelter limits mean that any new arrival individual or family requiring emergency shelter for more than 30 or 60 days, respectively, would need to vacate their current shelter placement and return to the Reticketing Center in the East Village or the Welcome Center at the Roosevelt Hotel to request a new shelter assignment – which might be in a different borough from the previous placement. Implementation of this system has resulted in roughly 75 percent of the single adults who hit the time limit and 50 percent of families with children not returning to the City’s shelters. Since the City does not track outcomes, it is not clear where those thousands of individuals have ended up. What is clear is that the shelter limits have functioned as a de facto denial of shelter to people desperately in need of safety and stability.5
In addition to the shelter limits, in November 2023 the City also began placing families with children in “semi-congregate” settings6 that were (and remain) wholly inappropriate for such households, including in massive tents erected in Floyd Bennett Field at a remote edge of Brooklyn. Upon inspection of the shelter facility at Floyd Bennett Field, which is paid for by the State, one expert in family health7 noted:
The two most troubling issues are the remote sanitation8 and the geographic isolation9 that residents face. These conditions are likely to cause substantial stress, particularly for stays of anything longer than a week or two. The sanitation issue, combined with the lack of sound isolation, has the potential to disrupt sleep; lack of adequate sleep is a major threat to health, in any setting but particularly one in which families are facing many other stressors. Geographical isolation may affect children’s ability to focus in school, and will likely [impact] migrants’ efforts to gain employment and otherwise gain independence.Another less acute but not insignificant issue is ventilation. The set-up is, despite the presence of walls at eye level, essentially an open format. In these conditions, common respiratory viruses are more likely to spread, particularly during the winter season. These viruses are unlikely to cause serious illness, but cumulatively they can affect children’s schooling and families’ stress level.
The two most troubling issues are the remote sanitation8 and the geographic isolation9 that residents face. These conditions are likely to cause substantial stress, particularly for stays of anything longer than a week or two. The sanitation issue, combined with the lack of sound isolation, has the potential to disrupt sleep; lack of adequate sleep is a major threat to health, in any setting but particularly one in which families are facing many other stressors. Geographical isolation may affect children’s ability to focus in school, and will likely [impact] migrants’ efforts to gain employment and otherwise gain independence.
Another less acute but not insignificant issue is ventilation. The set-up is, despite the presence of walls at eye level, essentially an open format. In these conditions, common respiratory viruses are more likely to spread, particularly during the winter season. These viruses are unlikely to cause serious illness, but cumulatively they can affect children’s schooling and families’ stress level.
In December 2023, the only “play area” for the hundreds of children sheltered at Floyd Bennett Field consisted of a single small broken plastic slide and a smattering of used books – English language only – strewn across some folding tables.
Despite such objections and requests from advocates to use this space for single adult new arrivals instead of families with children, the City continues to place families with children at Floyd Bennett Field.
In addition to his efforts to undermine the legal Right to Shelter, throughout 2023, Mayor Adams frequently chose to use the mayoral bully pulpit as a platform for alarmist political theatrics. Some examples include:
Similarly, Governor Hochul, in one of her many public statements around needing to curtail the Right to Shelter, attempted to frame the right as “an open invitation to 8 billion people who live on this planet.”
These somewhat clumsy and ineffective tactics did nothing to alleviate the crisis, and made New Yorkers question why the Mayor and Governor were not taking more concrete steps to reduce the shelter census in productive ways.10
Given the dire need for more shelter capacity, it is not clear why the Mayor did not take more aggressive steps to help more homeless longer-term New Yorkers transition from shelter into permanent housing using tools that were already available. The concrete recommendations provided by The Legal Aid Society, Coalition for the Homeless, and other advocates included urging the Mayor to:
Such actions, had they been embraced by the City, would have helped countless homeless households secure permanent housing while freeing up desperately-needed shelter capacity to help address the humanitarian crisis. Instead, Mayor Adams chose to largely ignore the recommendations, even going so far as to claim that advocates were failing to “come up with some tangible ideas” – regardless of the fact that the recommendations were both submitted to his administration in writing and were widely publicized.
Traditionally, refugee resettlement is a State responsibility, carried out with Federal coordination and support. When new arrivals began arriving in significant numbers in 2022, Governor Hochul should have immediately deployed resources to NYC – including setting up an operational hub in the Port Authority Terminal, where most people were then arriving – to oversee and coordinate relief, shelter, and resettlement efforts. The Governor, however, took great pains to frame the issue as primarily New York City’s responsibility, and limited the type and amount of support the State would provide.
The aid that was provided by the State, while critical, was generally characterized by the Governor’s administration as an act of largesse, rather than as an obligation or duty.
It includes:
While these efforts were helpful, what was needed in a crisis of such magnitude was leadership, coordination, operational involvement, and a commitment of far more resources. Instead, Governor Hochul’s response was marked by a series of actions that underscored her reticence to take a true leadership role in meeting the needs of the new arrivals. These include:
Mayor Adams’ and Governor Hochul’s responses to the shelter capacity crisis have thus been primarily characterized by their efforts to abrogate their moral and legal responsibilities to provide aid, care, and support to individuals and families in need. While the City undertook impressive efforts to quickly add tens of thousands of new shelter beds, it again must be noted that they were compelled by law to do so – a salient reminder of the vital importance of the legal Right to Shelter.
Among the many factors contributing to the shelter capacity crisis, one that deserves particular attention is the State’s practice of discharging individuals from prisons directly into the city’s overwhelmed shelter system.
As of July 2023, 41.8 percent of those released from state prisons were funneled into New York City shelters, a figure which represents a modest decrease from a peak of 54.2 percent in 2017, but nonetheless underscores the State’s practice of continuing the prison-to-shelter pipeline.
This trend is not merely a byproduct of systemic inefficiency; rather, it reflects deep-seated issues within the State’s reentry planning and both the City’s and State’s failure to provide access to affordable housing. While the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision asserts that it is making efforts to place individuals in alternative housing arrangements, the high percentage of those ending up in shelters over the past decade is telling.
Even so, beyond straining the shelter system, the government’s chronic neglect in providing needed reentry planning has left many without supports in rebuilding their lives after incarceration, often resulting in extended periods within the shelter system and making it harder for formerly incarcerated people to gain employment, care for their physical and mental health, and complete parole supervision.11 This failure of policy and compassion significantly impacts Black and Latino New Yorkers, who each make up a disproportionate share of both the prison system and the shelter population. As it stands, the State’s inadequate discharge practices largely serve to reinforce the cycle of disadvantage and systemic bias that pervade our society.
Addressing this issue requires a multifaceted approach that goes far beyond temporary, piecemeal fixes. The State must enhance its reentry programs to ensure that individuals leaving prison have access to stable housing, employment support, and health services from the moment of their release – with reentry programming and planning beginning well before a person’s release date. Because single adults and those entering the NYC shelter system from prisons and other institutions are not eligible for the State’s FHEPS rent supplement vouchers, the State should also increase the public assistance rent allowance to match fair market rents and expand access to State FHEPS.
Passing Fair Chance for Housing on December 20, 2023 was a valuable step by the City in helping to remove a barrier to housing for this population. However, the impact of that law for those discharged from State prisons will not be realized for several years to come.
The shelter capacity crisis created additional significant strains to a shelter system that, as past State of the Homeless reports have consistently pointed out, was already rife with obstacles. The legal Right to Shelter can exist on the books at the same time that problems with shelter eligibility, accessibility, and conditions can serve as de facto denials of shelter to people in need – whether homeless longer-term New Yorkers or new arrivals.
The percentage of adult families found eligible for shelter remains appallingly and unacceptably low, falling from 32.3 percent in 2018 to just over 17 percent in 2023. Adult families generally have higher rates of mental health issues, disabilities, and other medical needs, and face significant challenges in meeting shelter requirements at AFIC – especially in providing the documentation needed to prove familial relationships and document a one-year housing history. The latter is particularly difficult for adult families who have lived on the streets, as providing exact dates and documentation of periods of street homelessness is often impossible. The system’s rigidity fails to account for the complex realities of these families’ situations and – as demonstrated by a 17 percent eligibility rate – leaves them at a higher risk of prolonged, unsheltered homelessness.
In response to the concerns above, AFIC has been given the latitude to exercise managerial discretion in cases where it is clear that an adult family is doing everything possible to provide the required information that may, in fact, be unattainable – or may have a disability that is impacting the family’s ability to navigate the eligibility process. Such discretion is a critical, common sense solution, if a family ever receives it, as this latitude is not exercised until applicants are denied eligibility five or more times. This essentially means that a family must persist in applying for shelter for more than 50 days, through repeated denials that offer no hope of being found eligible for shelter, before such discretion is applied.
The eligibility rate for families with children went up from an all-time low of 25.4 percent during the pandemic, but it still hovers around what has become a year-to-year default level of around 40 percent. A January 9, 2024 report issued by the NYC Department of Investigation looked into the City’s reporting of PATH eligibility rates under Mayor de Blasio, and while the report evidenced manipulation of the data by DHS that reduced the daily eligibility rate, it was determined that this did not result in any families being denied shelter.
What does, however, result in homeless families being denied shelter is the use of eligibility screens required by a State administrative directive, which excludes many shelter applicants both by design and by the often-problematic execution of the eligibility verification process at PATH and AFIC.
Pursuant to the State administrative directive, shelter eligibility under Boston v. New York – the litigation that established the legal Right to Shelter for families with children – is granted to homeless families “who lack alternate housing…pending the City’s eligibility determination.”13 This is a very different standard than that for single adults under Callahan, which states that shelter must be provided to each individual who meets the need standard for public assistance or “by reason of physical, mental, or social dysfunction is in need of temporary shelter.”14
People find themselves without a roof over their heads and in need of emergency shelter and housing assistance for a myriad of reasons, and ultimately the best outcomes are achieved by helping people stay in their homes and avoid homelessness (and thus shelters) altogether or, barring that, ensuring that emergency shelter is easily accessed, is safe and appropriate, and provides the resources necessary to help shelter residents quickly transition into permanent housing and stability.
However, the current eligibility determination process that implements the State administrative directive results in far too many homeless families being denied shelter. In fact, an ongoing eligibility rate at PATH of only 40 percent and an eligibility rate of just 17 percent for AFIC suggests that the City’s operation of PATH and AFIC, and the system as a whole, are designed not to provide shelter to all who need it, but calibrated to limit who has access to it to keep State and City shelter costs down. Most denials are in fact based on the applicant family simply missing some information about its housing history15 – a tremendously (and needlessly) bureaucratic hurdle to require of a family in extreme crisis.
Poverty takes many forms and has many indicators. Eligibility criteria for shelter and relief that are keyed to only certain of those indicators – such as having been formally evicted, fleeing domestic violence, or being able to list every place one has slept for the past years and proving those places are no longer available – routinely preclude thousands of homeless, at-risk, and impoverished households from getting the help they need.
The introduction to this report highlights the fact that hundreds of thousands of people in New York City are in fact homeless but not counted as such because they are neither in shelters nor sleeping in public spaces; they are instead sleeping temporarily doubled- or tripled-up in the homes of others – a situation that, due to the stress, instability, and discord it creates, is a frequent precursor to entering a municipal shelter. It is so many of these households that are errantly found ineligible for shelter at PATH and who, because of their situation, are also not eligible for State FHEPS or CityFHEPS rent vouchers.
The shelter eligibility rates at both AFIC and PATH are appallingly low, and we must never forget that there is a largely unseen human cost for each one of those denials.
As discussed in the section above on “Creating Deterrents to Shelter,” the City’s implementation of policies requiring new arrival single adults and families to obtain new shelter placements every 30 and 60 days, respectively, reveals a strategy aimed at restricting shelter usage in order to reduce shelter costs. This is achieved by making ongoing access to shelters difficult and disruptive, regardless of the deleterious impact on the individuals.
The City has reported that between 75-80 percent of single adult new arrivals and roughly 50 percent of new arrival families with children do not return to shelter once their initial placement ends. As the City does not track outcomes of those effectively evicted from shelters, it is not known where those impacted by these policies have ended up.
But in addition to these shelter renewal policies, when the Mayor and Governor attempted to dismantle the legal Right to Shelter in order to evade their legal and moral obligations, they sought the ability to close the front door and deny shelter to new arrivals and many longer-term New Yorkers as well. As previously discussed, the Mayor and Governor were unsuccessful since the stipulation of settlement that ultimately emerged provides for a more narrowly tailored set of modifications applying only to new arrivals without minor children – and only for so long as the current crisis continues, not permanently.
More specifically, new arrivals without minor children are screened for eligibility as a condition to receiving shelter. They must prove they do not have the resources to rent their own apartment or do not have another housing option. Given the fact that those seeking shelter do not arrive in New York with income equal to 200 percent of the federal poverty level or an alternative place to stay, it is not surprising that most, if not all, applicants are initially found eligible. But with only 30 (or 60) days of shelter required to be provided by the City, the more challenging access barrier is proving that they are eligible to remain in shelter when this period ends. This can be a rather arduous and complicated process requiring evidence of a host of activities demonstrating that the new arrival is taking steps to leave shelter. Such efforts include seeking or obtaining employment or housing – steps which are challenging for anyone to achieve in such a short period of time, particularly when they lack necessary work authorization or legal status and are still dealing with the trauma of traveling to New York while also learning English and about New York.
As of this report, there is not sufficient data regarding the impact of these shelter procedures and the extension review process on new arrivals without minor children. Coalition and Legal Aid staff have encountered several new arrivals who initially were denied erroneously but, with advocacy, many of those determinations were reversed. But of greater concern are those who are not assisted by advocates or who simply are not seeking extensions either because they are unaware of their rights or are discouraged from doing so given any fears, concerns, or frustrations this process has created.
Both Butler v. City of New York and Lopez v. DHS represent landmark moments for the rights of unhoused people living in New York City’s shelter system. Settled in 2017, Butler mandates DHS to comply with its obligations under federal, state, and local law to ensure that any person with a disability seeking shelter is properly accommodated.
In a similar vein, Lopez, settled in 2019, specifically addresses the rights and accommodation needs of transgender, non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming (“TGNC”) people within the shelter system. As part of this agreement, DHS is required to create and maintain at least one shelter or shelter unit for TGNC clients in each borough except Staten Island; staff must undergo mandatory harassment and discrimination training; and both intake and complaint protocols were modified to protect the dignity and ensure the safety of TGNC clients.
Even though these cases mandate changes in policy to address the unique challenges faced by marginalized people seeking shelter in New York City, the reality continues to fall short.
In its most recent population analysis of shelter residents with disabilities, the City estimated that nearly two-thirds of single adults and three-quarters of adult families in shelters were living with a disability. Many individuals are unaware of their rights, subject to extensive delays or denial of the accommodations they have requested, or unable to navigate the bureaucratic processes necessary to secure that to which they are legally entitled.
The physical layout and structure of shelter facilities can present significant barriers to people with disabilities. Many shelter buildings are old and lack ADA-compliant or even functionally accessible amenities required to ensure shelter residents with disabilities can equitably utilize facilities and services. This includes a lack of ADA-compliant bathrooms and other amenities, buildings with stairways and no available elevators, or emergency alarm systems that do not have features to alert clients with hearing disabilities. Coalition staff have encountered various instances where clients chose to sleep outside or were confined to their rooms because their assigned shelter facility could not accommodate their mobility device, or onsite elevators were inoperable for weeks with no alternative placements offered. Beyond physical accessibility, people with disabilities encounter numerous access barriers when navigating the shelter system, particularly people with multiple disabilities or nuanced access needs.
This unacceptable situation is further compounded by protocols that shuffle occupants between placements to address the City’s need for additional capacity. In 2023, over 700 people with disabilities were subjected to arduous, confusing reassessment of the reasonable accommodations granted to them during the COVID pandemic – accommodations that promoted health and safety by placing residents in single and low-density rooms. Many Coalition clients were confronted with having to satisfy exacting evidentiary standards in order to preserve their placements. This was further complicated by DHS failing to provide clear and timely written notices to impacted shelter residents about the process, the status of their individual determinations, and the sufficiency of medical records submitted to substantiate requests. As such, many individuals were transferred to congregate and other facilities that failed to address their access needs.
Similarly, new arrivals are seldom, if at all, provided information about their rights or the medical records necessary to establish their accommodation needs. Accordingly, many end up placed at one of the sprawling temporary congregate shelter sites, such as the tents at Floyd Bennett Field and Randall’s Island, which have numerous access barriers for people with varying disabilities and medical needs.
In addition, the current 30-day and 60-day shelter limits complicate new arrivals’ ability to engage in medical care and secure the assessments necessary to establish their disability. But even if a need is identified, all City agencies providing shelter for new arrivals are not using the same process – meaning that staff making the determinations have different levels of understanding of the relevant issues, new arrivals do not receive the same notices and appeal rights, and placement decisions greatly vary. On top of this, fewer accessible placements exist within the HERRCs and respite sites.
Accessibility challenges for new arrivals and longer-term New Yorkers alike are not limited to physical access. Coalition staff have continually asserted to the City that people with apparent psychiatric or cognitive needs are not being identified either during intake and assessment or by shelter staff at their placement. Often these individuals are not self-reporting or explicitly requesting reasonable accommodations, resulting in placements that fail to address their needs. The congregate nature of most shelters for single adults, with their noise, lack of privacy, and forced adherence to rigid schedules, can be particularly challenging for people with mental health issues, psychiatric disabilities, trauma related to their long and difficult journeys to New York, cognitive or developmental disabilities, or those who require regular medical care – further marginalizing them within the very system intended to offer refuge.
In 2023, the New York City Council took a step towards addressing some of these shortcomings by passing legislation to create an Accessibility Advisory Board tasked with identifying and advising on accessibility issues in shelters. This bill also requires newly constructed affordable housing and shelters to be ADA-compliant. It is too early to assess the impact of the bill, however, and the board has not yet been created.
Despite advances made under Lopez, TGNC people, whether new arrivals or longer-term New Yorkers, continue to experience difficulties accessing services that respect their identity. This is, in part, due to a shelter system that continues to utilize a binary framework, requiring individuals to choose a women’s or men’s facility without regard to the vast range of gender identities and expressions. As a result, transgender clients, especially those residing in shared living spaces, are frequently misgendered and subjected to discriminatory attitudes of staff and other clients that impinge on their sense of safety and ability to equitably access services and facilities.
Too often, TGNC clients of the Coalition include both longer-term New Yorkers who have been harassed and have received multiple safety transfers within the shelter system, as well as TGNC new arrivals held in overcrowded waiting rooms or massive congregate facilities and who choose to sleep outside and, in some cases, contemplate suicide. Similarly, in the case of TGNC families, there are greater challenges to qualifying for shelter, particularly since documentation proving their status as a family may be more difficult to obtain, or a family member’s preferred name may differ from their legal birth name.
The conditions, configuration, and location of shelter facilities greatly impact the experiences of the individuals and families utilizing those facilities, and poor conditions and shelter configurations that feel unsafe exacerbate trauma, contribute to instability, and deter shelter usage by those in need.
Throughout the year, the Coalition for the Homeless monitors conditions in the DHS shelter system to assess compliance with existing legal requirements. Between such monitoring efforts and communication with residents, we witnessed an increase in conditions negatively impacting the health and safety of shelter residents. These ranged from lack of heat, air conditioning, and operable elevators, to residents being served inedible and expired food, to being confronted with mold, roaches, and vermin in their individual units.
Coalition staff routinely bring these issues to the attention of DHS to ensure they are addressed, but given that there are hundreds of shelter facilities throughout the five boroughs, it is incumbent upon the City and State to take the lead and adhere to their legal and moral obligation to provide safe, decent, and accessible shelter to all in need.
In its efforts to rapidly create enough shelter capacity for the large number of new arrivals entering New York, the City has been utilizing a wide range of facilities to serve as shelters, many of which are not Callahan-compliant. While the terms of the March 15, 2024, Callahan settlement provide for five types of facilities that the City may utilize as “crisis shelters” for new arrivals (facilities that don’t meet Callahan standards but are still safe, and compliant with Federal law and local fire and safety codes), the conditions, configurations, and location of many of these are far from ideal and can negatively impact individuals’ efforts toward stability. Examples include:
In addition to significant growth in the unhoused population generally, the demographics of those sleeping in the shelter systems reflect stark racial and ethnic disparities that underscore the broader societal and systemic challenges facing many parts of the country. More specifically, Black and Hispanic populations are again significantly overrepresented in the city’s shelters.
In FY23, Black (non-Hispanic) people constituted 44 percent of the shelter population compared to 23 percent of the citywide population generally. Similarly, Hispanic people constituted 46 percent of shelter residents compared to 29 percent citywide.
Examining the numbers more closely, it is particularly notable that between FY22 and FY23, there was a substantial rise in the number of Hispanic residents in shelters, from 10,230 to 19,560 people. This near doubling over the course of one year resulted in Hispanics eclipsing Black (non-Hispanic) people as the largest racial demographic in city shelters. Concurrently, the Black (non-Hispanic) shelter population saw a less pronounced increase, from 17,710 to 18,400 residents.
The rapid demographic changes have been driven primarily by the new arrivals who, in 2022 and 2023, were largely families with children from Latin America – particularly Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia.
A significant number of new arrivals are also from Mauritania, Senegal, and other African nations. Since New York City lacks an extensive pre-existing community of people from many of those countries, those individuals have fewer existing support networks to help them resettle – and those speaking Wolof, Pulaar, or other African dialects have encountered cultural challenges and language barriers that further complicate their resettlement and access to services.
Regardless of their country of origin, the new arrivals require legal support to navigate the complexities of the federal immigration system and to secure work authorizations in order to be legally employed. Such restrictions on the ability to earn income hinder the new arrivals’ efforts to find the stability needed to rebuild their lives, prolonging their need for emergency shelter.
It is the city’s duty not only to provide unhoused individuals and families with shelter that is safe, suitable, and accessible, but also to ensure such shelter stays are as brief as possible and are coupled with a way to access permanent housing and stability. Shelters are not the answer to homelessness; housing is.
However, the average length-of-stay (“LOS”) for families with children, adult families, and single adults in shelters generally has been increasing for years, with the average duration for each of these groups peaking in FY22.
The average LOS decreased in FY23, but that decrease cannot be read as an indication that the Mayor and Governor are succeeding in addressing the underlying reason that people seek and stay in shelters: the lack of access to affordable housing. Instead, the decrease in LOS was a result of the large number of new arrivals entering the shelter system, who had shorter stays in DHS shelters largely for the structural and policy reasons discussed above.18
To shorten the time that families and individuals languish in shelters, the Mayor and Governor must address both the lack of access to existing housing, and the deficient supply of housing that is available to homeless and extremely low-income (“ELI”) households.
One of the most effective tools the City and State have at their disposal for helping individuals and families exit shelter – and avoid entering shelters in the first place – is rent vouchers such as CityFHEPS and the State’s FHEPS program (Family Homelessness & Eviction Prevention Supplement).
The City-funded rent voucher programs introduced by the previous mayoral administration (the design of which continues to evolve) have proven to be a very effective tool for helping homeless households move from the shelter system into permanent housing and stability.
As Figure 2.2 shows, the number of households exiting shelters with City-funded vouchers increased to its highest level since FY15, which is an improvement by the City that must be acknowledged. The Mayor also deserves credit for issuing an emergency decree in September 2023 that allowed CityFHEPS vouchers to be used outside of the five boroughs of NYC, thus opening up the universe of available units in New York State.
However, when measured against the actual number of homeless households in DHS shelters, it becomes evident that much more must be done to help individuals and families utilize these vouchers – especially given that by the end of 2023 more than 10,000 households in the shelter system had qualified for CityFHEPS vouchers but were unable to use them.19
Having recognized the effectiveness of CityFHEPS vouchers, as well as the obstacles to securing and using them, the City Council attempted to expand and improve the CityFHEPS program by passing Local Laws 99, 100, 101, and 102 in June 2023. Together these bills remove eligibility rules that require the recipient to have recently resided in shelter or have a certain employment status or source of income. They also provide that, except in certain circumstances, recipients receive the full rental allowance amount without deduction for utility allowances. Coupled with an expansion of the income eligibility cutoff to 50 percent of the area median income (“AMI”), these measures expand eligibility to those who are “at risk of eviction or experiencing homelessness.”
While Mayor Adams eliminated the rule that required households to reside in a municipal shelter for at least 90 days before being eligible for a CityFHEPS voucher, he has refused to implement the City Council’s full expansion of the voucher program – first by vetoing the bills and then by refusing to implement critical elements of the package once his veto was overridden by the City Council.
In order to reduce the number of households residing each night in shelters, it is imperative that Mayor Adams address the obstacles that hinder access to, and use of, CityFHEPS vouchers by:
This latter item is critical because, for yet another year, source-of-income (“SOI”) discrimination continues to be the highest reported form of illegal housing discrimination in the city, significantly limiting the impact of CityFHEPS and further widening housing inequalities and deepening existing racial segregation.20 Common methods used by brokers to discriminate against voucher holders include the use of explicit denials, not responding after a voucher is mentioned, or pretending the unit is no longer available. In addition, many brokers try using income requirements (e.g., earning 40 times the rent), having a minimum credit score, or requiring a guarantor to exclude tenants whose vouchers could cover 100 percent of the rent. Unfortunately, the New York City Commission on Human Rights has remained too chronically underfunded to enforce the law.
Given that so many households require rent vouchers in the first place because the public assistance rent allowance is set by the State at a level that is so far below actual rents in New York21, it is Governor Hochul who must address this critical flaw. The State’s FHEPS program, which is designed to bridge that gap, could and should play a much larger role in reducing the number of people in shelters, but its narrow entitlement eligibility requirement excludes all single adults and adult families as well as most families with minor children (who either have not been sued in eviction proceedings in Housing Court, or have not been evicted in a Housing Court proceeding and subsequently entered DHS shelter within 12 months of applying).
Again, it is the State that sets the public assistance rent allowance at a level that is a fraction of actual fair market rents, and it should thus be the State’s responsibility to correct that problem – one that impacts tens of thousands of homeless and at-risk New Yorkers. Broadening eligibility for the State’s FHEPS voucher, or more to the point, increasing the public assistance rent allowance to fair market rent (“FMR”) levels, would significantly reduce the need for emergency shelters in New York.
Given the significant number of individuals with mental illnesses or disabilities who sleep either unsheltered or in congregate shelters, supportive housing remains an essential tool in the efforts to reduce homelessness in New York City. Supportive housing offers a stable living environment coupled with services that support eligible individuals, and not only results in long-term stability for formerly homeless residents, but also saves taxpayers approximately $10,000 per year for every person housed. Furthermore, property values in neighborhoods where supportive housing is constructed generally increase. If operated properly, it is thus a win-win-win solution.
While FY23 shows a greater number of single adults placed into supportive housing than in the previous two years, it must be noted that placements in both FY21 and FY22 were suppressed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year’s number, while higher than the number of placements during the pandemic, was still lower than the number placed in FY19, and far below the high of 2,174 placed in FY14.
Additionally, existing program challenges are frequently exacerbated by administrative bottlenecks and chronic underfunding, which hamper effective operation and service delivery within supportive housing frameworks. Persistent barriers, such as referral processes that do not account for the physical accessibility needs or the specific eligibility criteria of individuals, inaccessible interview locations, and mismatched eligibility assessments serve to exacerbate the gap between the availability of supportive placements and the swelling demand. The processes lack transparency and do not empower individuals involved to participate actively in decisions about their living arrangements. Moreover, staffing shortages and high turnover rates in shelters intensify these challenges, making it difficult for residents to find knowledgeable staff willing to navigate the cumbersome and opaque housing application process.
The ongoing bureaucratic inefficiencies and the lack of corrective action to streamline and humanize the supportive housing application process continue to undermine the effectiveness of this crucial resource. As a result, far too many individuals with mental illnesses or disabilities who are eligible for supportive housing remain homeless.
Unhoused individuals and families who do not require or are ineligible for supportive housing have few options other than set-asides – permanent housing units specifically designated for homeless households.
Figure 2.5 shows that 362 more households were placed into set-asides in FY23 as compared to the previous year. While any increase of housing placements is welcome, the number of longer-term New Yorkers in shelters increased by 4,790 people. Not only is the number of placements into set-aside units far too low to begin with, even the increase is not keeping up with the growth in homelessness in NYC. This again illustrates that the known solutions to homelessness are not being implemented at a rate or scale sufficient to reverse the crisis.
* – Because the City’s published figure for number of unduplicated households in DHS shelters over the course of the fiscal year includes both new arrivals and longer-term New Yorkers, in order to exclude new arrivals from the analysis, the chart above compares households placed into set-asides with individuals in NYC shelters – a data set from which we are able to disaggregate new arrivals.
As the city’s largest source of permanent affordable housing, public housing administered by the New York City Housing Authority (“NYCHA”) has long been an important source of housing for formerly homeless households. However, as Figure 2.6 illustrates, the City has been failing to utilize this critical resource, and, in fact, the number of individuals who moved from shelters into NYCHA housing was at its lowest level over the last eight years.
NYCHA attributes this to significant increases in the amount of time required to complete unit turnovers, which surged from 160.8 days in FY22 to 370 days in FY23.24 As a result of such delays, approximately 4,000 – 5,000 housing units sat vacant every month throughout 2023.25 While no one should be subjected to unsafe or unsanitary housing conditions, it is equally unacceptable for the City to fail to take the necessary steps to expedite these repairs so that thousands of eligible homeless households can finally move from shelter into permanent housing.
Given that over the past two years more than 200,000 new arrivals have come to New York in need of shelter, services, and housing, it is deeply concerning that Governor Hochul failed – and continues to fail – to design, fund, and implement a comprehensive statewide decompression and resettlement plan. Refugee resettlement is traditionally a role of the State (with Federal backing), and yet two years into the crisis, the Governor has done little more than launch the sputtering MRAP, which State officials themselves concede is a “disappointment.”26 The goal of the program was to resettle between 1,250 and 2,500 migrant families into permanent housing throughout New York State in the first year, but MRAP had not even reached 400 by May 2024.
Despite pleas from providers and advocates to correct obvious flaws in the design of the program – such as the existing one-year cap on rent support, and currently operating the program in only five of the state’s 62 counties – Governor Hochul has shown no interest in fixing MRAP and helping new arrivals secure permanent housing and move toward stability. As of May 2024, 14,559 families with minor children – consisting of 50,883 individuals – remained in NYC shelters.
Given that even if the cost of MRAP were doubled, it would cost a fraction of what it is costing the State and City to shelter families with minor children in inappropriate facilities like the massive “semi-congregate” tents in Floyd Bennett Field, the Governor’s reticence to seriously engage in resettlement efforts27 is difficult to comprehend. These are families who came to New York to start new lives, find work, and become members of the community – not to live in shelters.
While vouchers and other forms of rent support are extremely effective tools in fighting mass homelessness, we cannot “voucher” the city and state all the way out of a crisis that, at its core, derives from the severe lack of affordable housing for those at the lowest income levels.
For every 100 extremely-low income (“ELI”) households in the New York metro area, there are merely 31 affordable and available rental units.28 In a city where the cost of living far exceeds national averages, and ELI households are defined as those earning below the poverty line or 30 percent of the AMI, this gap leaves a vast number of residents without access to housing. This situation has been fueled by decades of underinvestment in permanent affordable housing for low-income communities and the failure of all levels of government to enact policies to meaningfully reverse this trend.
The worsening housing precarity in New York City is further compounded by the growing rent burdens borne by the city’s residents. Rent-burdened households (i.e., spending more than 30 percent of household income on rent) increased from 53 percent in 2021 to an alarming 86 percent in 2023. Meanwhile, the number of ELI households who were severely rent-burdened (i.e., spending more than 50 percent of household income on rent) increased to 74 percent.29 This financial strain severely limits the capacity of ELI households to afford other necessities, such as food, healthcare, and childcare, and forces many households to live in overcrowded conditions (i.e., having more than two people per bedroom or more than one person living in a studio apartment). In fact, nearly a quarter (23 percent) of New York City households with at least one child are overcrowded. Given that living in overcrowded conditions is frequently a precursor to homelessness, such statistics portend greater levels of mass homelessness if this affordable housing crisis continues unabated.
The median rent in New York City has consistently outpaced inflation and income growth, creating an environment where affordable housing becomes increasingly scarce. Rent-stabilized units are particularly difficult to come by. Per the most recent Housing Vacancy Survey, the vacancy rate for rent stabilized units was less than 1 percent in 2023 – down from an already distressingly low 4.6 percent in 2021. More to the point, the vacancy rate for truly affordable apartments (i.e., those renting for less than $1,100 per month) was only 0.4 percent. Effectively, there are no affordable apartments left in New York for those who need them most.
In fact, this dynamic has continued trending in the wrong direction. Between 2017 and 2021 alone, New York City lost 96,000 housing units with rents under $1,500, while gaining 107,000 units with rents of $2,300 or more.30 Such a dramatic loss in the supply of apartments affordable to low-income renters, including those relying on a public assistance rental allowance, shuts many New Yorkers out of the housing market entirely.
Figure 2.9 below shows the number of supportive housing units completed in FY23.
Although the recent uptick in supportive housing units completed is promising, it is still nowhere close to keeping pace with actual demand. More specifically, only 1,197 units were completed in FY23, but the number of people eligible for supportive housing in FY23 was 8,235 – nearly seven times that number.
The New York City 15/15 Supportive Housing Initiative, launched in 2016, aims to develop 7,500 congregate units and 7,500 scattered-site units by 2030. Given the urgent need to provide enough supportive housing for the thousands of individuals and families who are eligible for, but unable to access, this critical resource, the Coalition has long urged the City to accelerate the timeline for these units. However, as of December 2023, 6,053 (81 percent of the 7,500 goal) of the congregate units and only 1,280 (17 percent) of the scattered site units have been awarded funding, suggesting that, at this pace, we may fall short of even this initial 2030 target.31
FY23 saw a welcome increase over previous years in the number of set-aside units financed and completed, as shown in figures 2.10 and 2.11.
The number of set-aside units financed and created in FY23 continued to increase from the pandemic-era lows in FY20 and subsequent years, for which the City deserves credit. However, the numbers are still far below the level needed to move the needle on mass homelessness in New York City.
While the Mayor has been touting the “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” proposal as a solution to the city’s affordable housing crisis, the proposal does not include any requirements for deep affordability. Building more market rate housing or encouraging the creation of more “affordable” housing for those earning 80 percent – or even 120 percent – of AMI will do next to nothing for the more than 350,000 people in NYC without homes. Trickle-down housing strategies do not work. To pull New York out of a five-decade-long crisis of increasing mass homelessness, we must prioritize those in the greatest need.
To begin to reverse the trajectory of the crisis, the City should be financing at least 12,000 units of affordable housing per year for five years, targeted specifically to homeless and ELI households.
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