Testimony: Solving Homelessness Through Housing and Social Supports
Oksana Mironova
Thank you to the New York City Council’s Committee of General Welfare for holding a hearing on unsheltered homelessness in New York City. My name is Oksana Mironova and I am a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society of New York (CSS). We are a leading nonprofit that promotes economic opportunity for New Yorkers. We use research, advocacy, and direct services to champion a more equitable city and state.
Over the past few months we have seen the police violently push unhoused people out of visible public areas in the City, while the Sanitation Department throws their worldly possessions into the trash.
While these sweeps have once again become visible to the public eye, they are not a new practice. Giuliani used sweeps to settle petty scores and promote punitive policing and was sued multiple times for violating homeless peoples’ rights. Our last mayor, Bill de Blasio, was arguably the most liberal since Lindsay. But, he ordered his police and sanitation departments to conduct over 9,000 operations to destroy homeless people’s belongings and move them along.
Outside of the cruelty of perpetually moving homeless people from one place to another, homeless “sweeps” do not address homelessness, while further marginalizing the extremely poor.
The alternatives being offered by the current administration are woefully insufficient. Many people who are homeless find congregate shelters to be “chaotic and unsafe,” and the latest safe haven beds being offered aren’t even really a new resource – they were promised and funded by de Blasio.
There are four ways that cities around the world deal with homelessness:
- By providing public housing to those who need it.
- By providing vouchers to pay for private housing for those who cannot afford it.
- By allowing homeless people to informally construct housing of their own. Or, most destructively,
- By locking up the homeless in jails and prisons.
As of now, the city is continuing to shut down option number three (informal housing). But neither the city, the state, or federal governments are stepping up to make options one or two (public housing or vouchers) viable for most people currently facing homelessness either. This leaves only the most dystopian of choices for New York. Mirroring the austerity budgets of the 1990s, he mayor’s executive budget proposal doesn’t fund housing and social service agencies to the extent needed, while the Governor’s budget failed to include viable options for shoring up public housing or creating a new voucher program.
If we want to get serious about ending and preventing homelessness, here’s what we have to do: First, stop the bleeding by continuing, expanding or creating programs that keep people housed. These include an end to the predatory tax lien sale system that pushes people out of their homes. It also includes an expansion of existing vouchers programs, like CityFHEPS, to cover eviction prevention, while stepping up enforcement on landlords who refuse to take vouchers or those who keep their buildings in poor condition.
In addition, we need to ensure that our existing eviction prevention laws, like Right to Counsel, are properly functioning. Eviction cases are often complex and require both time and nuance. Unfortunately, New York City’s housing courts are struggling with a backlog of eviction filings, creating a dangerous environment for tenants. In the Bronx, judges used to hear one case every 30 minutes in their Right to Counsel intake part; now they hear two cases every 15 minutes. This is an impossible position for legal services organizations, leading to inadequate attention for tenants. In the coming months, housing court should only move the cases for tenants with legal representation, and adjourn all others, until legal services organizations have more capacity.
Next, step-up the production of truly affordable, supportive and social housing in New York City. The city should put forth a housing plan, term sheets and capital commitments that prioritize housing for the lowest-income New Yorkers, who make up roughly a quarter of the city’s population but have perilously few housing options, increasing the set aside for unhoused New Yorkers. We also need to reinvest in public housing as both a means to keep people housed and to house the homeless.
We need to stop pretending that discarding homeless people’s meager belongings is any solution to homelessness. It wasn’t under the last five mayors, and it won’t be under this one either.
The choice is simple: We can spend our public money on maintaining homelessness through thousands more street sweeps, or we can spend our public money on housing and social supports.
The solution to homelessness is housing, jobs, welfare, and social services.