WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES NOVEMBER 11, 2021 13
How the new governor can help the new mayor on homelessness
BY TED HOUGHTON
Aft er a long campaign, Eric Adams
will soon take offi ce as New York
City’s new mayor, and just about
the only thing we can be sure of is that it
won’t be long before his administration
will be accused of not doing enough to
reduce homelessness. New Yorkers
always hold their mayors accountable
for New York City’s longstanding housing
aff ordability crisis, but this is hardly
fair. Our leaders in Albany have a key
role to play, too.
With New York’s new governor,
Kathy Hochul, promising “a whole new
era of cooperation” between the state
and the city, and a progressive Legislature
eager to make a dent in the problem,
real change could be on the horizon.
This mayor may fi nally get the state
support he needs to end homelessness
as we know it.
To give the newly elected Mayor
Adams a head start on homelessness
and housing, Governor Hochul and the
Legislature can take a few important actions
in the next few months:
First – before the state legislative session
even begins in January – Governor
Hochul can make sure the Emergency
Rental Assistance Program (ERAP)
continues to get desperately needed federal
dollars to tenants and landlords adversely
aff ected by the pandemic. Governor
Hochul’s leadership has already
transformed New York from being the
slowest state at distributing this critical
aid to being one of the fastest. Her
eff orts should be celebrated. But more
than 90% of New York’s share of ERAP
has now been distributed, two months
before the state’s eviction moratorium
expires, when the households most
likely to become homeless will fi nally
apply for assistance. The governor must
persist, and succeed, in her eff orts to get
Washington to reallocate ERAP funds
unspent by other states to New York, or
homelessness could explode in the new
mayor’s fi rst few months.
Second, Governor Hochul can immediately
sign S6573/A8009 (Kavanagh/
Rosenthal) to increase how much rent
can be paid by the state’s Family Homelessness
Eviction Prevention Supplement
(FHEPS), the rental voucher for
homeless and at-risk households. An
increase in the payment standard of the
state’s rental voucher is long overdue,
and will align it with the rates the city
voucher pays, which were recently increased
to match federal voucher rates,
to better refl ect the true cost of renting
in New York City.
Of course, that’s not all the governor
can do on rent subsidies. Helping vulnerable
families and individuals pay
their rent is the single best way to prevent
and end homelessness. But Section
8, the federal rent subsidy, reaches only
OP-ED
one out of every fi ve poor households
who qualify for it.
New York City has responded to
this need by creating locally funded
vouchers, but the state has repeatedly
refused to pay its fair share of the costs.
In response, the Legislature has advocated
establishing new, state-funded
rental vouchers, most recently under
the proposed Housing Stability Support
(HSS) program and the Housing Access
Voucher Program (HAVP). Governor
Hochul can demonstrate real partnership
with Mayor Adams and fund both
of these desperately needed programs
on a scale that will signifi cantly reduce
homelessness. This will not only help
New York City, it will help localities
across the state. It is long past time for
the state to step up and help to house
struggling New Yorkers.
Finally, Governor Hochul can
ensure the state lives up to its historic
role of caring for our most vulnerable,
disabled and homeless residents. She
can start by increasing the number of
long-term state psychiatric beds made
available to individuals suff ering mental
health crises.
But housing is the solution to homelessness,
so it’s imperative Governor
Hochul increase the state’s production
of permanent supportive housing. She
can demonstrate true leadership and
improve on — and accelerate — Governor
Cuomo’s promise to create 20,000
new supportive housing apartments
for homeless New Yorkers. And to
make sure we don’t lose the supportive
housing units New York’s nonprofi
ts have already built, Governor
Hochul must also set aside funding to
preserve and maintain in good repair
those now-aging supportive housing
units.
This commitment must be made now,
so that production of desperately needed
supportive housing units doesn’t slow
down. But it will be even more signifi cant
if it is incorporated into a new city-state
supportive housing agreement with the
new mayor (and mayors of big cities all
over the state, for that matter). Three previous
agreements comprise the most successful
aff ordable housing development
initiatives ever, pooling state and city
resources to create thousands of aff ordable
apartments for formerly homeless
individuals and families supported with
on-site services. The unique structure of
these agreements ensured the city and
the state would hold each other to their
individual commitments, and helped the
initiatives survive the administrations
of fi ve mayors and fi ve governors.
The state has long had responsibility
for meeting the housing needs of
vulnerable New Yorkers, including individuals
with mental illness, families
made homeless by domestic violence
and the thousands of people being
released from state prisons who are
now overwhelming the shelter systems
in New York City and across the state.
And homelessness has long been an
enormous, structural economic and
social crisis beyond the ability of localities
to address on their own. But with
a Legislature and new governor eager
to help, Mayor Adams may just have a
chance to make real progress housing
homeless New Yorkers.
Ted Houghton is the president of
Gateway Housing and former executive
deputy commissioner of NYS Homes and
Community Renewal.
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