NYC shelter system was in crisis even before arrival of thousands of migrants: report
New York City’s shelter system was already grappling with a serious homeless crisis — even before a crush of tens of thousands of migrants overwhelmed the system, according to a stinging new report released Monday.
Based on a review by the city’s Comptroller Brad Lander, one of the biggest challenges the Department of Homeless Services faces is moving people from temporary shelters into permanent apartments amid a dearth of affordable housing in the Big Apple.
“At a time when rents are skyrocketing and the shelter system is bursting at its seams, we need to focus on what works,” said Lander.
The report goes on to reveal the average time people live in the city’s shelter system, and the numbers are bleak: 2.3 years or 28 months for childless adult families, 17 months for families with children and more than 16 months for single adults for fiscal year 2022 (July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022).
The audit did credit DHS for cutting the average length of stay in shelters during the summer and fall of 2022 by 14.7% for single adults, 12% for families with children, and 7% for adult families, when compared to the same prior period.
“That means redoubling our efforts to build affordable and supportive housing, providing subsidies to homeless families to reduce their time in the shelter system, scaling up effective ‘housing first’ programs for people who are sleeping on the street, and helping new arrivals apply for asylum and work authorization so they can move out of shelter on their own,” Lander added.
The report also found:
— 22% of single adults who received an unsubsidized housing placement returned to shelter within a year of exiting the shelter system.
— Lack of services for homeless individuals with addictions or mental illness — 26% of clients diagnosed with a serious mental illness were not placed in a mental health shelter, and 49% of clients diagnosed with drug or alcohol abuse issues were not placed in a substance abuse or mental health shelter.
— DHS lacks a single data system for tracking its outreach for homeless individuals living on the street, despite spending $61.4 million in fiscal year 2022. “As a result, DHS may be hindered in determining the success of outreach efforts,” the audit said.
On a positive note, Lander’s analysis gave Mayor Adams’s administration and DHS a “thumbs up” for ramping up bed capacity during the migrant crisis — noting the city opened 135 emergency shelters between June 2022 and May 2023 to help manage the influx of asylum seekers.
It also noted that less than 5% of single adults and less than 1% of families who received subsidized housing placements returned to the shelter system.
Team Adams and DHS defended the agency’s performance while facing unprecedented challenges.
“More than 100,000 asylum seekers have come to New York City seeking shelter since last spring with more than 57,000 currently in the city’s care, and DSS-DHS continues to meet its mandate to provide shelter to those in need while significantly expanding access to city-funded rental assistance, cutting the red tape, and launching a pilot to connect New Yorkers experiencing unsheltered homelessness directly to supportive housing,” DHS said in a statement.
