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MEMORANDUMTO: Shola Olatoye, Chair & Chief Executive Officer, Housing Authority, New York City (NYCHA) and Gilbert Taylor, Commissioner, Homeless Services, Department of (DHS)FROM: Robert Beiderman, Jessica Dudley and William SharrieffSUBJECT: Homelessness & Affordable Housing in New York City DATE: March 10, 2016TOPICThe purpose of this memorandum is to address the 91% increase in homelessness in New York City over the past two decades. Specifically, the correlative relationship between homelessness and affordable housing and how this issue can be addressed. PROBLEMOver the past two decades, New York City has seen the number of homeless New Yorkers nearly double. As of December 2015, there were more than 60,000 homeless people in the NYC municipal shelter system. The progressive growth suggests that a change in course is necessary. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless “a lack of affordable housing and the limited scale of housing assistance programs have contributed to the current housing crisis and to homelessness.”iHARMSEach and every homeless person in New York City is in danger of harm, as well as all New Yorker’s who are struggling on the poverty line. The numbers are staggering and, as the Coalition for the Homeless points out, there are several disadvantaged groups at risk: Children (there are over 42,000 homeless Children in NYC)People living with mental illness and/or other severe medical conditionsAfrican-American and Latino (NYC’s homeless shelter residents are 58% African-American, 31% Latino)Homelessness is a traumatic experience for anyone, but children especially need a stable environment to help them excel in life. The American Psychological Association (APA) reports that “homelessness affects children’s health and well-being, their brain development, causes stress, and hinders readiness for school.” Homelessness often interrupts children’s access to stability of their school environment and can cause socio-emotional harm, which furthers the negative impact on their health and wellness. It is a well-accepted fact that today’s youth are the future leaders of our world – their health and development is important for our society to continue to thrive. The APA’s Helping people without homes states that 18% of homeless adults met criteria for current severe mental disorder, twice the rate found in the general population. The APA further explains the heighten prevalence of other health problems including tuberculosis, hypertension, asthma, diabetes, and HIV/ AIDS. These serious health conditions are exacerbated by lack of shelter, stress and trauma associated with homelessness, putting recovery and care at risk for a substantial segment of the homeless population. African-American, Latino and other ethnic minorities have long faced discrimination, which may lead to increased risks of poverty and homelessness. According to the APA “discrimination against racial and ethnic minority populations long embedded in American society has resulted in the overrepresentation of people of color, particularly African Americans, poor people, and correspondingly, people who are experiencing homelessness” leading to economic instability. Ensuring discrimination-free and affordable housing for people of color is imperative to reducing homelessness. Providing a solution for homelessness will protect New York City’s children, mentally and physically ill, ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups. The homeless population has risen significantly in the past decades and is at its highest level since The Great Depression. Exploring its causes may light the way to some possible solutions.CAUSES The National Coalition for the Homeless states “homelessness results from a complex set of circumstances that require people to choose between food, shelter, and other basic needs.” Of these circumstances, the National Coalition for the Homeless argues that poverty and lack of affordable housing are the leading causes over the past 20-25 years. Although there are many programs in place, there is more that can be done to improve housing affordability and achieve the New York City Department of Homeless Services critical objective “to increase the number of households prevented from becoming homeless.” Addressing the homelessness crisis in relationship to the lack of affordable housing in NYC is critical to the health of our city. According to the Citizens Budget Commission, affordable housing in NYC “is especially important because rental housing constitutes the bulk of the housing supply: the rental share of occupied housing units is 68.3 percent, greater than every other large city.” The lack of affordable rental units is further expounded by the unusually slow growth in the rental market – the short supply contributes to NYC’s lack of affordable housing for the general population and those struggling with poverty and getting back on their feet from homelessness. OPTIONSNext Generation NYCHA New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) – the largest public housing authority in North America – is a key resource in providing affordable housing to New Yorkers. However, years of neglect have caused many NYCHA apartments to fall into disrepair. According to a 2015 audit conducted by Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office, NYCHA had 2,342 empty apartments as of late last year — and 312 of those, which were removed from the rolls for major repairs, had been vacant an average of seven years. Not only are these apartments wasted space in a city that loses tens of thousands of affordable apartments each year to de-regulation, they represent about $8 million in lost rent, according to the audit's findings—a significant loss, especially for an organization with a an estimated $6 to $13 billion deficit. Demand for the apartments is high. The waiting list for a NYCHA apartment has 270,000 families. In order to maintain this affordable housing stock, changes to NYCHA have to be made. The proposal for Next Generation NYCHA is a plan that needs to be utilized to save NYCHA housing. NYCHA Next Generation is a ten-year strategic program that will attempt to increase revenue, make needed repairs to its infrastructure and increase efficiency. 80 percent of NYCHA buildings are more than 40 years old. Without this plan, NYCHA has $17 billion dollars in unmet major infrastructure repairs. If full occupancy of NYCHA apartments is going to happen, the issue of revenue needs to be addressed. Next Generation NYCHA also calls for increasing revenue by using underutilized land to develop housing with a 50-50 split between affordable housing and market rate housing units. The increased revenue from the market rate units will be reinvested back into repairs. There are also plans to increase parking fees to increase revenue as well. Finally, NYCHA needs to increase efficiency. Apartment vacancies decrease potential revenue and cause NYCHA housing to fall further into disrepair. The city must also increase efficiency by collecting outstanding rent from residents in arrears. In addition, the administrative overhead has been reduced so that the agency runs more affordable, so that savings can be reinvested. NYCHA secured forgiveness from the City for long-standing payment requirements totaling more than $100 million annually, including payments for police services. The city has also agreed to take some of NYCHA’s staff on the city payroll and accept NYCHA repair calls through its 311 call center, eliminating NYCHA’s own customer call center. Residents in homeless shelters should get priority for vacant apartments. It is more cost effective for the city to transition clients from shelter into permanent housing in NYCHA apartments. More residents should equal more revenue. By reforming NYCHA, this can be used as one tool in a multi-faceted plan to give New Yorkers access to affordable housing and alleviate the pressures on the shelter system. Addressing Rent Regulation LawsAddressing homelessness and affordable housing as it relates to rent regulations is essential to any plan to curb the growth of NYC’s homeless population. Rent regulations have a direct impact on housing affordability and rent for more than two-thirds of New Yorkers, creating a dynamic where rent regulations affect the majority of NYC’s residents. According to the 2014 New York City Affordable Rental Housing Landscape, it is estimated that half of NYC renters are rent-burdened, spending half or more of their monthly income in rent. Housing affordability is an issue for many New Yorkers and it has been exacerbated by the soaring rents that are a result of the Rent Regulation Reform Act of 1997 and the continuation of it’s policies in the Rent Laws of 2003, 2011 and 2015. The Rent Regulation Act of 1997 “introduced a new mechanism for partial vacancy decontrol. Under the new law, all apartments whose monthly rent rises over $2,000 following a vacancy are deregulated.” Although this amount was increased to $2,700 in 2015, in many neighborhoods average rents have already risen over $3,000 a month. As the rental market has become deregulated, affordable housing has become less acceptable, putting New Yorkers at risk to become burdened and locking people out of the rental market when they need to look for a new apartment. Perhaps even more importantly, the Rent Regulation Reform Act of 1997 “created two major changes in Housing Court procedures: (1) it mandated rent deposits by tenants involved in landlord-tenant actions after 30 days or a second adjournment request; and (2) it sharply restricted Housing Court judges’ authority to grant adjournments and post-judgment stays of eviction warrants in non-payment court proceedings.” These changes in Housing Court procedures have made it easier for landlords to push at-risk renters into homelessness. At the state level, these rental regulations need to be readdressed to support middle-income and low-income NYC residents to ensure that there is housing they can afford without burden. In doing so, New York State and New York City will be taking important measures to curb the growth of NYC’s homeless population. Support of increased rent regulations will help eliminate soaring rent costs, a widening rent-income gap and put an end to NYC’s homeless and affordable housing crisis. Public-Private Partnerships While the number of New York City residents in need of affordable housing is staggering, there is a tremendous opportunity for development. According to NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, the city is currently in possession of over 1,000 vacant lots; 75% of which have been unused for more than 30 years. Some of these lots are already in the development pipeline, but others wait patiently for financing. The city has done an admirable job proposing legislation – pending City Council Review – that would require all new housing developments to set aside 25% - 30% of residential floor area as permanent affordable housing. According to the NYC Department of City Planning, this mandatory inclusionary housing “would be the most rigorous zoning requirement for affordable housing of any major U.S. city.” 2 While this policy should help thousands of residents in need over the next decade, more can be done to put additional people into affordable housing faster. In recent years, public-private partnerships have teamed up to design modern, energy-efficient buildings that provide affordable housing for not just a fraction, but all of their residential units. The developers buy land from the city at a discounted rate and receive government funds to make up the difference between existing rents and market rates. Examples of these successful partnerships include Arbor House in the Bronx, Arverne View in the Rockaways and the East Harlem Center for Living and Learning. Arbor House features a rooftop garden that provides fresh produce for building residents, while new technology at Arverne View has reduced energy consumption by 30% and the developers for the East Harlem Center included a 20,000 SF public park that links the building with a recently opened charter school. This solution is a win for everyone: the developers make money, the city saves money (design and construction costs are paid by the developer), and those in need get more affordable housing units. Since the developers can only collect income once tenants have moved in, they are more motivated to complete construction in a timely manner. When the East Harlem Center for Living and Learning was built, more than 77,000 people applied for 88 apartments. There is still a lot of work to do. Following in the path of these buildings dedicated to 100% affordable housing will transform neighborhoods, create private sector jobs, save the government time and money, and provide more people in need with quality, affordable units they can call home.CONCLUSIONUnderstanding that the lack of affordable housing is root cause of the majority of homelessness creates an opportunity for offices like Housing Authority, New York City (NYCHA) and the Homeless Services, Department of (DHS) to work together to alleviate the problem. Mayor de Blasio’s policy to end the use of clusters provides room for some new opportunities. However, the homeless population has grown so dramatically that providing a wide range of housing solutions is imperative. Thank you for your attention to the important matter of addressing the combined issues of homelessness and affordable housing. Together we can combat the housing crisis. We have a strong desire to help you in arriving at a solution for the well-being of our city and its residents. ................
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