Homeless survey finds 7% spike in
people with nowhere to live in NYC
BY MARK HALLUM
In a recent survey, New York City’s
government found that in January 2020
there was a 7% spike in people living
on the streets over the year prior.
Even with such an increase, advocates
are calling this year’s HOPE survey an
undercount, not to mention a piece of
research that did not include how the
pandemic effected homelessness, as well
as a damning take on the now-defunct
Subway Diversion Program.
“The 2020 HOPE Survey confi rms
that by January of this year, we were
beginning to see some preliminarily
encouraging results from our intensifi
ed subway efforts, while on the streets
we know there is more work to do,” city
Department of Social Services Commissioner
Steven Banks said. “We’re
confi dent that the array of new transitional
and permanent housing tools and
expanded efforts announced right before
we conducted this year’s survey will help
us take this progress further, with new
outreach staff and new specialized beds
coming online over the past several
months since and helping hundreds of
The MTA shut all trains at the end of lines where scores of homeless were
forced from the trains to be cleaned in early May.
additional New Yorkers transition off
the streets.
According to Coalition for the Homeless’s
Policy Director Giselle Routhier, the
23% fewer people refl ected in the survey
as living on the subway did not mean the
city had been taking long-term measures
to prevent those people from ending up
back on the street. The only way to bring
people in from experiencing homelessness
PHOTO BY TODD MAISEL
is to affordable and supportive housing as
well as safer shelters.
“The fl awed methodology of the HOPE
estimate means it is certainly an undercount
– there are many more homeless
New Yorkers who are not refl ected in this
point-in-time count. Even so, the latest
HOPE numbers provide further evidence
that Mayor de Blasio’s push to forcibly
remove homeless New Yorkers from the
subways via the recently disbanded Subway
Diversion Program has simply led to
an increase in the number of individuals
sleeping rough on the streets,” Routhier
said. “But it is even worse than harassing
homeless New Yorkers out of one public
space to another: Mayor de Blasio has
closed off opportunities for people who
have absolutely nowhere else to turn and
signifi cantly eroded any progress that outreach
workers might have been making in
building trust.”
But with the Subway Diversion Program
being dissolved, another force has taken
over during the pandemic; in May, the
MTA with help from NYPD began shutting
down subways between 1 and 5 a.m.
in order to scrub the subways and stations
clean of COVID-19 and to force homeless
men and women out of the system, but
not without being offered shelter services.
“Since we launched the most comprehensive
outreach program in the country
four years ago, we have helped more than
2,800 New Yorkers off the streets,” Mayor
Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “We will
continue to do everything we can to take
this progress further and help every last
person experiencing long-term homelessness
fi nd their path home.”
The HOPE Survey’s history goes back to
2005 and the city claims the latest fi gure
is representative of what HOME-STAT
outreach teams are seeing throughout the
fi ve boroughs.
Are ‘recovery leases’ the answer to New York
City’s retail rental crisis?
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
As small businesses across New York struggle to
pay the rent amid the COVID-19 pandemic, city
lawmakers are looking for a way to help tenants
and landlords renegotiate their existing leases and ease
the economic pain.
Manhattan state Senator Brian Kavanagh and Assemblywoman
Yuh-Line Niou have introduced a home rule bill
that would allow New York City to launch a “recovery
lease” program that would give landlords long-term tax
incentives if they agree to restructure leases with their
existing commercial tenants.
“Vacant storefronts and rising commercial rents are not
a new phenomenon in New York, but the public health
and economic crises have greatly exacerbated the hardships
facing our small businesses,” Kavanagh said. “When
storefronts are vacated, that can have a ripple effect, with
reduced foot traffi c making it harder for other businesses
to thrive, jeopardizing the whole neighborhood.”
Niou noted that her home district includes Chinatown,
which began suffering a severe drop in business in January
as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread globally.
“We have already seen far too many of our local
businesses closed, and had too many of our community
members laid off,” she said. It is necessary that we ensure
that our remaining small businesses and small business
owners who have been fi nancially impacted by the COVID
19 pandemic are able to continue to maintain their
commercial space through negotiated leases and long-term
affordable rents.”
The bill, called the COVID-19 Small Business Recovery
Lease Act, enables the City of New York to create legislation
granting property tax abatements to building owners
who agree to recovery leases with their current commercial
tenants. The leases themselves will last at least 10 years,
and limit annual rent increases.
Tenants who enter into new leases for spaces that were
left vacant for reasons other than eviction would also be
eligible to negotiate a recovery lease with their landlord.
The legislation has yet to be created on the city’s side, but
Brooklyn City Councilman Brad Lander said he is working
with other lawmakers, economists and business groups to
design the recovery lease program.
“So many of our businesses were facing challenges of
rent affordability before, now they’re facing giant arrears
and overwhelming anxiety about their stability for the future,”
Lander said. “By providing tax relief for commercial
property owners, we can help small businesses lock in rents
at stable, lower rates — a forward-thinking tool that will
be essential for the rebuilding and recovery yet to come.”
For business groups and mom-and-pop merchants, the
relief can’t come soon enough.
Wellington Chen of the Chinatown Partnership, Randy
PHOTO BY REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID
Artists paint a mural on a boarded-up storefront
as part of neighborhood project in the Bowery
neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, New
York, U.S., June 17, 2020.
Peers of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and Andrew
Rigie of the NYC Hospitality Alliance also announced their
support of the recovery lease legislation.
“I especially like that it helps both landlords and tenants,”
Chen said. “One of the lessons we have learned from
this crisis is that we must do as much as we can, for as long
as we can, to keep small business owners from shutting
their doors because once they vacate or leave, it is likely
that it will take a long, long time before we can fi nd another
to take their place.”
12 August 20, 2020 Schneps Media