 |
| Jamie Powlovich - Executive Director, Coalition of Homeless Youth, and other advocates at City Hall. |
Homeless LGBTQ Youth and the organizations
that support them will rally at the steps of City Hall on Tuesday to support
the Runaway and Homeless Youth Bill Package, and will return to City Hall on
Wednesday to pass out handmade Valentines, encouraging City Council Members to
"Have a Heart" before the stated meeting.
While New York State has raised the age of
eligibility for youth services to 25, many New York City youth programs are
still forced to turn away youth after 21 due to the City's inaction.
On Tuesday, February 13th, I joined
a group of advocates for a Rally/Presser
to Support Runaway and Homeless Youth Bill Package at City Hall Park. Supporting
organizations: Queerocracy, VOCAL-NY, Hetrick-Martin Institute, Ali Forney
Center, The Door, Coalition of Homeless Youth, Covenant House NY, NYC Continuum
of Care Youth Advisory Board, FIERCE.
Jamie Powlovich - Executive Director,
Coalition of Homeless Youth – explained that before her current position, she
worked for the New York City Administration for Children's
Services, a governmental agency that provides welfare services to children and
their families in the City of New York.
When youth turned 21, workers with ACS regularly discharged the young people
under their care into the shelter system. She still regrets that. Today, she argues young people need support until
they are 24. That’s why she supports the Runaway and Homeless Youth Bill
Package.
Carl Siciliano - Executive Director, Ali
Forney Center and a frequent attendee at similar press conferences – noted that
he was tired of these events. “I hope
this is the last time we have to come to beg for services for LGBT youth. I’ve
had enough of hearing about youth sleeping in the streets, or having panic
attacks about fear of violence they encounter on the streets, or suicide
attempts, or sleepless nights. I hope this is the end of us asking the city to
do the right thing. Its fifty years
after Stonewall and the homeless youth who lead the riots for gay liberation
are still homeless, living on the streets.”
Background on the Runaway and Homeless Youth
Bill Package:
· Extending the Age: Force DYCD to extend the age that RHY
contracted programs are able to serve with city funding to 25yo (currently
21yo) as allowed by state law.
· Extending the Length of Stay in RHY
programs: Force DYCD to extend
the length of stay that runaway homeless youth are able to stay in contracted
programs as allowed by state law. Although DYCD has already implemented this,
it is important for the bill to pass, to make it law for future
administrations.
· Awarding Runaway Homeless Youth the Right to
Shelter: Formally grant
runaway homeless youth the right to youth-appropriate shelter.
Tomorrow on Valentines Day, youth who are experiencing
homelessness will be taking to the steps of City Hall to hand out homemade
Valentine's Day cards to City Council Members before the Stated Meeting to
encourage their support of homeless youth by supporting the Runaway and
Homeless Youth bill package. The laws would help end youth homelessness in the
city of NY.
Inside the City Hall,
social worker Craig Hughes, delivered testimony at the
The
New York City Council Committees on Youth Services February 13, 2018 Hearing.
I
include it in total as it highlights the complexity of the problem at hand and
the ways the city needs to do more to address this problem.
Thank
you, Chair Rose, and members of the committee on Youth Services, for the
opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Craig Hughes and I am a
social worker and researcher who focuses on homeless youth matters here in New
York City. I am testifying in support of each of the resolutions up for
discussion today, though with particular concern on the matter of a right to
shelter for RHY, which I unequivocally support. Like many others, I am
exceedingly appreciative of Chair Rose’s decision to bring a hearing so quickly
on RHY matters – it is a welcome change – as well as Speaker Johnson’s serious
and established commitment to finally seeing-through legislative changes
desperately needed to meet the needs of New York City’s runaway and homeless
youth (RHY) population. As I will discuss below, I do not exaggerate in stating
that Chair Rose, CM Torres, CM Gibson and Speaker Johnson have the chance to
make historic change by intensely focusing on legislation that increases and
improves the resources available to RHY right now. With that, I must note that
enthusiasm is tempered due to a change in language in one of the proposed
bills, which in its new form removes explicit support for a right to shelter
for RHY. The right to shelter for RHY should not be a point of compromise – it
should be the starting point of discussion. This testimony addresses the three
bills, but also aims to provide some important context to City policies as they
relate to RHY, and goes on to make recommendations for needed resources.
Haphazard Interventions In beginning my testimony I’d like to give an anecdote
from my own recent experience. This anecdote is minor, but it may help to
illustrate the haphazard way the De Blasio administration has sought to aid
homeless youth who survive on City streets. While working for a local agency, a
colleague reached out to me because a young person, seeking services through a
social service program elsewhere in the City, was trying to access an RHY bed
and having difficulty. Unfortunately, the City has no sufficient central
hotline or centralized emergency intake system for RHY beds. Rather, the policy
is that a City official holds a cell phone and will take calls if a provider is
having a difficult time finding a bed. Late last year, in testimony before the
Council, a City official with DYCD testified to the following process for
placing a homeless young person: We’ve put in place so many different steps for
youth to get beds. […] If they are in need of a bed and they’re having
difficulty, they can call me, and I make sure that that youth is placed in a
bed. So these are steps that we’ve put in place for all of our programs in
terms of making sure that no youth is without a bed on any given night. Now
whether the programs take advantage of these particular steps that we’ve put in
place, that’s something we have to work with them on to make sure that they do
it better. But the thing is that we’ve put in place systems so that any youth
at any given time can be placed in a bed. And that’s giving my number out,
which they can call me… [CM Levin requests phone number] […] The number is,
everybody’s ready? 1- C. Hughes, Testimony 2/13/2018 3 646-457-2705. And this
phone works even when I’m on vacation where it can be accessible, so that I can
communicate with my staff to make sure that they are doing their jobs assisting
all of our providers get beds for any youth.1 Except, on the afternoon I am
referencing, the official with the phone was home sick (as I later found out
via email from the Deputy Commissioner). Before finding that out, I called the
cell phone number mentioned above from both my work phone and my personal cell
phone – but only a voicemail answered. I also called various numbers in DYCD’s
RHY unit – no one answered. I sent emails to DYCD’s Deputy Commissioner and the
official who testified to holding the relevant cell phone. Email and calls went
unanswered until nearly two hours later – a second email I sent was only
returned after I emailed the same DYCD officials and informed them that I had
contacted Legal Aid about the issue; it took approximately 14 minutes to get an
answer to my emails at that point. Suddenly, a City official was dispatched to
find the young person a bed. Clearly we all get sick, and City officials are
extremely busy by nature of their work. However, since City policy – as
outlined in testimony above – is that this is the route through which a bed can
be found if someone is experiencing difficulty, clearly this policy is
insufficient. This past weekend, while writing this testimony, I called the
City’s “Youth Connect” hotline – a toll-free number published on their website
that purports to connect youth to resources. I work late, so it was about
1:00am on Saturday. This was the message I heard when I called: Welcome to
Youth Connect, the resource and referral service for New York City youth,
families and community-based organizations at the New York City Department of
Youth and Community Development […] We are currently closed. If you are in need
of a shelter and are under the age of 21 or are feeling stressed or in crisis
please call the National Runaway Safeline at 1-800-786-2929 where someone is
waiting to listen to your concerns and connect you to a network of resources.
If you’re looking for information on DYCD services please visit our website at
nyc.gov/dycd, or call us during normal business hours 9am-5pm Monday through
Friday. And be sure to follow Youth Connect [online]. […] If this is an
emergency please hang up and call 911. …Thank you for calling, your call is
being directed to 311. What is that message saying? Well, first, someone
seeking youth shelter is out of luck. Secondly, if they are in crisis they can
hang up and call a national hotline. It is saying a lot of other things – but
it is certainly not saying, “if you need a bed, here is a bed.” Clearly a
business-hours-only hotline and an individual carrying a cell phone is not a
sufficient intervention for linking homeless youth to youth-specific beds.
Realistically, this is the smallest possible resource allocation the City could
make, other than making no resource allocation. The entire functionality of an
entry-point into youth shelter should not be subject to typical City business
hours, or whether an official is home sick. But this is what happens.
With
that example in mind, I also want to start my testimony with a more general
point. It is important to note that, historically, the bar has been set
remarkably low for expectations of what RHY resources will be made available.
Accordingly, even meager improvements and expansions are often taken as
reasonably scaled interventions, particularly by City officials. Celebration of
the work done by the City in recent years – as crucial as that expansion of
resources has been – should be placed in context to the scale of the need. If
that is our point of comparison, then it is certainly no time to be
self-congratulatory.
A
Background of Municipal Indifference2 Runaway and homeless youth (RHY) have
never been given sufficient resources in New York City. Since the current
homeless crisis began in the late 1970s homeless youth have typically been the
last attended to, and the least served. Their marginalization within the safety
net can be seen in the City’s proactive efforts not to acknowledge their very
existence. Going back to the early 1980s, City official’s butted heads with
advocates on how many RHY walked our streets. Officials tended to argue that
the numbers were unknown or small, and advocates tended to argue they were in
thousands. 3 During the 1990s, the Giuliani administration commissioned an
estimate of the size and needs of the RHY population, hiring well-known RHY and
AIDS researcher Michael Clatts to conduct the study. When Clatts returned his
data, with an estimate of some 20,000 homeless youth in New York City,
officials suppressed the report – refusing to allow its release to the public.
Findings were later leaked to reporters and related articles were subsequently
published in the New York Times, the Village Voice and elsewhere.
The
Bloomberg administration wasn’t much more interested in acknowledging the needs
of these young people. Throughout the latter’s tenure, advocates fought back
against the administration’s constant use of homeless youth resources as a sort
of political football in budget negotiations.5 While the City Council helped
fund the most reliable, realistic and respected study on the number of homeless
youth, the Bloomberg administration never put up resources to match that need.
By
the end of the Bloomberg administration, New York City had approximately 250
beds in its youth continuum, overseen by the Department of Youth and Community
Development (DYCD).7 It was only upon the end of his tenure that the Bloomberg. This background information has also been
stated in previous testimony to the Council
That study was coordinated by the Empire State
Coalition for Youth and Family Services (now the Coalition for Homeless Youth)
and estimated that 3,800 youth were homeless in New York City on any given
night, with 1,600 in some variation of street homelessness.
Mayor
Bloomberg ended his tenure leaving Mayor De Blasio the largest crisis of
housing and homelessness since modern homelessness began.9 Two days before
Mayor Bloomberg left office, Legal Aid sued him for a right to shelter for
homeless youth.10 That case, to the dismay of many, remains unsettled more than
four years into the current administration. It’s conceivable that the piecemeal
approach the City has taken to providing a bare minimum of resources for RHY is
an effort to avoid settling that same suit. During the Democratic primary
debates in 2013 a moderator asked a very difficult question: what funding would
a given candidate, under no circumstances, cut? Mayor De Blasio’s answer shocked
many of us serving and advocating for homeless youth: he would never cut
services for runaway and homeless youth.
At
no point had RHY matters been a focus of any mayoral candidate during the
election season – in fact the population remained invisible even in discussions
of the contemporary homeless crisis. Hopes were raised among advocates,
providers and homeless young people. Unfortunately, the performance of the De
Blasio administration summarily lackluster. While the Mayor has added
desperately needed beds, the administration has not met, by any reasonable
measure, the needs of this exceedingly vulnerable population. The legislation
proposed today targets a few of the gaps in RHY services and policies under the
De Blasio administration. However, it does not propose a right to shelter for
RHY. Accordingly, the proposed legislation falls drastically short of meeting
the needs of many of New York’s most vulnerable young people. Last year
Governor Cuomo signed changes into RHY law that allowed for two major shifts in
current policy.
First,
in accord with federal definitions, the legislation changed the age that young
people could receive services as homeless youth, from 20 to until their 25th
birthday.13 Secondly, the legislation increased the amount of time young people
could spend in crisis beds to 120 days and in transitional beds to 24 months.
Part of the reason this legislation passed without significant pushback at the
local level is because it gave municipalities the ability to opt-in on the
change of age and length of time in RHY programs. Since the passage of this
legislation, DYCD and Mayor De Blasio have – with significant pressure –
extended the length of stay, though this is not yet written in law, which a
proposed bill under consideration today addresses. The administration has not
increased the age of youth shelter – it should do so immediately.
A
study released in November of last year by Chapin Hall at the University of
Chicago found that approximately 10% of young adults experience homelessness
during a given year. Older studies, from approximately 20 years ago, estimated
that up to 406,000 young people age 18-24 were homeless over a given year.
There is good reason to believe that youth homelessness is increasing.14
Additionally, the aforementioned numbers do not include youth under 18 years
old, which would substantially increase these figures. Research shows that NYC’s homeless youth are primarily youth of color. For example, CIDI’s 2015 survey of New York City homeless youth found that respondents were overwhelmingly youth of color – 4% of the respondents identified as white, while the vast majority identified as black or Latino. The same study found that about 49% of respondents identified as male and 46% identified as female. Studies show that between 30%-40% of homeless youth in New York City identify as LGBTQ. 15 CIDI’s 2015 study found that 10% of unsheltered homeless youth in New York City identified as transgender or as another gender outside of a M/F gender binary; nearly nine percent of “unstably housed” youth – homeless youth in various overnight situations – identified as transgender or as another gender outside of a M/F gender binary.
In 2017, New York City’s sheltered homeless youth ages 18-24 years old – that is, young people in emergency or transitional beds – comprised approximately 10.5% of the national 18-24 year-old unaccompanied and sheltered homeless youth population. New York City was home to nearly 29% of homeless 18-24 years olds who were parenting across the nation. In 2017, New York City was home to 71% of New York State’s 18-24 sheltered homeless youth population. Approximately 84% of New York State’s homeless 18-24 year old parents resided in New York City.17 We don’t have a reasonably sound estimate of the number of young people living in some variation of street homelessness – the closest we have is the 2008 Empire State (Coalition for Homeless Youth) study, now a decade old.
Framing
The Issue: The City Should Focus on Resources and Clarify Numbers A significant
reason for the De Blasio administration’s failure to adequately assist RHY is
its embrace of a problematic philosophy that focuses more on “uncover[ing]
reasons for family conflict” and relationships within the families of homeless
young people than in providing them resources to access stability and exit
homelessness. For example, the City’s 2017 plan to the State Office of Children
and Family Services (OCFS) explains a guiding philosophy of DYCD’s RHY programming:
With regard to program services, DYCD expects providers to apply a range of
strategies to attempt to achieve family reunification or improved family
relationships. Case management services with youth that include such strategies
are available from initial placement into crisis shelters, as well as in TIL
programs and the drop-in centers. In each setting, follow-up services
(communication and referrals) are provided after discharge for up to 90 days.
In
the course of undertaking in-depth, comprehensive assessments, case managers at
DYCD-funded RHY providers are expected to uncover reasons for family conflict
and identify individuals, inside or outside the family, who could be potential
sources of support for the youth in the future. Funded programs should also
offer support and reassurance to increase confidence and make youth feel safe
if they want to reach out to family members. In counseling sessions and
psychosocial or life skills workshops, staff can facilitate discussions about
common causes of family strife and why parents impose rules, model behavior
through role play with participants, and highlight the benefits youth may gain
by staying connected or reconnecting with family members. In some
circumstances, they may also be able to act as mediators between the youth and
their families.17 While some of this may be beneficial to some young people,
the decision to focus more on repairing family relationships than on helping
homeless youth access stabilizing resources – e.g. housing subsidies, priority
access to public housing, benefits assistance, job placement – leaves many RHY
stuck in homelessness. For reasons unclear, DYCD tends to overplay the success
of reuniting RHY with families. For example, in the 2017 data reported in the
annual Mayors Management Report (MMR), DYCD makes the ambiguous claim that 77%
of youth in crisis shelters were “reunited with family or placed in a suitable
environment from crisis shelters.” However, data produced by DYCD in response
to FOIL requests tells a different story – one that raises serious questions
about how DYCD is drawing its conclusions in the public presentation of its
system. According to the FOIL’d data on crisis discharges from 2017, a total of
333 – of 3,444 – duplicated-discharges from crisis beds were reunited with
family (“returned home”). DYCD’s MMR data reports that 88% of youth discharged
from TIL beds in FY17 were “reunited with family or placed in a suitable
environment from Transitional Independent Living (TIL) centers.” However,
FOIL’d data shows that only a total of 68 – of 445 – duplicated discharges from
TIL beds returned home. According to MMR Indicator definitions, DYCD defines
the above categories (“reunited with family or placed in a suitable
environment” from TIL or crisis beds) as the following: “The percent of youth,
served through the Department’s Runaway and Homeless Youth Program [crisis or
transitional] shelters, who make the transition to independence or return to
their families."18 This definition makes DYCD’s numbers even more confusing.
What does DYCD define as “a transition to independence”? For example, in 2017
the highest number of discharges from crisis shelters, according to DYCD’s own
data, are youth who go back into crisis shelters; the second highest number of
discharges were categorized as “Unknown/Self-discharge” (Please see Appendix 2
at the end of this testimony for the data provided via FOIL from DYCD). While
both approaches are probably helpful – although it should be noted that many
RHY do not seek to “reunite” with their biological family, and many continue to
be close with their biological family, though unable to reside with them for
varied reasons – the City’s ongoing decision not to invest in RHY access to
permanency resources, and to reduce its conceptualization of youth homelessness
to a matter of family conflict, has not resulted in many RHY exiting
homelessness. Providing access to resources and investing in expanded resources
to help young people access benefits systems, living wage jobs, and permanent housing
may have the outcome of helping young people exit homelessness. Providing
resources for case managers to actually assist young people with these
processes is desperately needed.
Current
Resources 1. Beds As of September 2017, the Department of Youth and Community
Development’s (DYCD) youth continuum had 525 functioning beds. 19 As of
September 2017 there were an additional 128 beds awarded, many of which were
pending final authorization to open. Of the 653 total beds, 417 (64%) are TIL
beds and 236 (36%) are crisis beds. Many of these beds are sub-population
specific, including beds exclusively for LGBTQI-identified clients, young
mothers and children, and some beds for young women involved in the sex trade.
These beds include many of the initial beds that have come since 2016, when
Mayor De Blasio announced his plans to add an additional 300 beds. Upon
addition of all 300 beds, DYCD’s continuum will total 753 shelter slots for all
homeless youth in New York City. Under current rules, including recent changes,
DYCD crisis beds allow for a 60-day stay with the possibility of another 60-day
stay if DYCD approves a request from a shelter provider. TIL beds allow for
stays of up to 24 months. 2. Drop-Ins In addition to shelter beds, New York
City funds drop-in centers in each borough. In Manhattan there is one 24-hour
drop-in, which provides services exclusively to LGBTQI youth. In Queens a
24-hour drop-in also recently opened. The remainder of currentlyrunning youth
drop-ins are open at varied hours, but no other drop-in centers are open 24
hours.20 3. Outreach New York City funds two late-night street outreach
programs, which are administered by a single agency. DYCD has reported that in
FY16 it served 11,737 RHY via Street Outreach programs in FY16.21 DYCD-funded
and other municipal outreach teams are not formally connected to each other.
Providers often point out that youth-specific outreach has impressive
competency with engaging homeless youth while other homeless outreach programs
are not particularly adept at engaging this population. 4. Housing
There
are some housing resources available to homeless youth relying on DYCD
resources. For youth suffering from serious and persistent mental illness who
are chronically homeless, at any given time a young person may be able to
access a supportive housing unit constructed via the NY/NYIII agreement.22 In
April of 2017, the administration announced plans to provide RHY relying on DYCD
resources with access to local rental subsidies (e.g. LINC).23 The
administration has not yet provided this access. When asked, the City
(questionably) laid most blame on the State for holding up approval for reforms
to the City’s rental subsidies, stating: The City is committed to this goal. We
have been working with HRA and incorporating feedback from DYCD-funded
providers. As part of the process to make this opportunity more widely
available, the subsidy overall is being streamlined. Considerations for
homeless youth in DYCD-funded programs has been written into that process which
is currently at the State for approval. There will also be a city process, and
additional coordination to flag individual eligibility within our data
systems.24 Only a marginal number of youth aging out of foster care are placed
into public housing (NYCHA) units, and homeless youth reliant on the DYCD
resources do not have priority access to public housing. 25 Homeless youth
reliant on the DYCD resources do not have access to Section 8 resources, with
the exception of a marginal number who access Section 8 aid through supportive
housing. Homeless youth reliant on the DYCD still do not have access to local
rental subsidies. Simply put, most RHY have virtually no way to sustainably
exit shelter or street homeless. 5. Mental Health Services Under the current
administration, and through New York City’s Thrive NYC initiative, there has
been an increase in funding for mental health services through DYCD programs.26
New York City has provided both shelters and drop-in centers some funding for
mental health assistance, which providers have used to fund therapists and
psychiatrists for medication aid and evaluations to be in used for supportive
housing access. Gaps in Resources How Many Homeless Youth Are There? While it
is important to note that some work has been done to grant RHY resources,
applause should be tempered by the vast scope of the youth homeless crisis and,
given that, how little the City has really embraced young people on our
streets. This begins with simply acknowledging the number of homeless youth
sleeping in desperate situations
Advocates
have long argued that the current administration’s efforts to tally homeless
youth has been overwhelmingly under-resourced and questionable in
methodology.27 Because of problematic methodology decisions and a refusal to
seriously invest in a counting effort, New York City’s main social service
research arm, the Center for Innovation Through Data Intelligence (CIDI), has
found itself arguing that there are less than 150 street-homeless youth on a
given night in New York City.28 Numbers like these, which impact the resources
made available for this population, are outrageous on their face. And if they
are used to determine needs in capacity planning, the resulting capacity plan
would start from a point of absurdity. The 2008 count of RHY, funded in part by
the City Council, estimated that on any given night 3,800 homeless youth were
homeless in New York City. Since 2008’s financial crisis, homelessness in New
York City has substantially increased.29 There is ample reason to believe that
the number of homeless youth, like the rest of the homeless population, has
also increased. Given the deep reluctance on the part of the administration to
conduct a realistic population count, the City Council should again fund a
serious count of RHY using a methodology far more practical and realistic than
that currently by the City, particularly in its HOPE effort. Shelter Beds For
homeless and runaway youth under 21 years old, youth-specific crisis beds are a
lifeline. These beds help young people get off the streets or out of abusive
situations, and into a warm place where they can eat a hot meal, sleep in a
warm bed and engage with youth-competent social service providers. The City’s
decision to implement an extension on the stay in crisis shelters and TIL’s was
desperately needed. As importantly, the current age-restriction – which means
that young people under age 21 must leave the DYCD system upon their 21st
birthday – pushes many young people out of helping services before they can
truly get the most from them. Data released by the City showed that in FY2017,
30% of discharges from crisis shelters went back into a shelter, while 23%
simply disappeared. Twenty-three discharges – total, not percent – were of
young people moving into their own apartments.30 Approximately 12% of young
people moved from crisis shelter into some formulation of “Other Residential
Care/Supportive Housing.” Even if we assume that all those going into “Other
Residential Care” are in fact moving from crisis shelter into supportive
housing, if we combine that number with young people going from crisis shelter
into some sort of their own housing (i.e. combining the latter
discharge-category with the 23 young people moving into their own apartments),
only a total of approximately 13% moved into some variant of permanent housing.
Put another way, the DYCD crisis shelter system discharged 87% of clients into
some variant of homelessness, institutionalization, or off to the four winds. Fit is
of note that the FOIL’d numbers are duplicated, so this could include, in
theory, the same young person more than once. Given the very small number, the
author is assuming this does not include the same young person more than once. While
crisis beds tend to be a revolving door, some young people do exit crisis beds
into the City’s transitional (TIL) beds. In FY17, approximately 18% of crisis
discharges were made into longer-term TIL beds. Unfortunately, given the dearth
of long-term housing options, most of these youth didn’t fare better when they
were discharged from transitional beds. Of 445 TIL discharges in FY2017,
approximately 16.6% were discharged back into DYCDcrisis shelters. Another 10%
went into the adult shelters. More than 22% moved in with friends or relatives.
Approximately, 12% accessed their own apartment, which the same number who
simply disappeared from services (11.9%). If we add all those who moved into
their own apartment and those who were discharged into “Other residential
care,” we find that approximately 12.6% of youth discharged from TIL beds moved
into some variant of permanent housing. If we add all those discharged into a
crisis or transitional shelter, discharged into incarceration or
hospitalization, or going into another type of shelter, we find that
approximately 38% of youth discharged from “transitional” beds transitioned
into homelessness or crisis. Housing Resources A major issue that homeless
youth confront is the lack of permanent housing options available to them when
they are trying to exit DYCD’s RHY system. As mentioned above, youth relying on
DYCD’s resources do not have access to the rental subsidies put in place by the
current administration for other homeless populations. They do not have
priority access into federal resources like NYCHA and Section 8 subsidies. Many
RHY who the City deems eligible for supportive housing are not able to access a
unit – this is due largely to the dearth of available units, but it is also the
outcome of provide-level creaming of eligible applicants at the supportive
housing level, which the City has facilitated for years. Without long-term
housing options youth remain homeless in one form or another. Lack of housing
and financial poverty may mean increased involvement in survival sex or other
high-risk engagements in the street-economy. It is well known, among providers
and many others, that many young people who exit the DYCD system find
themselves involved in survival behaviors in efforts to get by, which is
directly in relation to avoiding the dangers they or those in their community
have experienced in the adult shelter system. Public Benefits Systems Another
major issue that homeless youth confront is the lack of support with navigating
public benefit systems. Anyone who has worked with homeless youth knows that
they are often treated badly in mainstream benefits programs. Negative
experiences with public assistance systems lead many youth to avoid them and
seek alternative sources of income, which often includes engagement in survival
sex and other sectors of the street economy. For youth experiencing disabilities,
particularly those related to mental health, accessing long-term disability
benefits is exceedingly difficult. The Social Security Administration denies
most federal disability (SSI or SSDI) applicants on their initial applications,
and accessing a youth-competent attorney to support in an appeal process is
often just as hard.31 DYCD does not provide funding for assistance for
navigating public assistance programs, and does not provide assistance for
disabled youth to access federal disability
Unsurprisingly, many of these youth find
themselves going years without the benefits they need – if they ever get them.
LGBTQI Competency Finally, LGBTQI youth, particularly transgender young people,
are simply often not safe in the adult shelters and, often times, in the RHY
programs. There is significant reason to believe that this is one factor as to
why so few discharges from DYCD shelters are made into the adult shelter system
but not out of homelessness. On this matter, DYCD deserves significant credit –
the agency has sought to make resources available to homeless LGBTQI youth that
no other administration has. However, applause is tempered. While there is
certainly a need for LGBTQI-exclusive services, there is much work to be done
to ensure that all RHY programs function in full embrace of LGBTQI identities.
We must ensure that young people who enter the door at any RHY program are
supported in finding and being who they are and determining their gender and
sexual orientations. Mental Health Supports Undoubtedly, the City’s investment
via Thrive NYC is significant. Unfortunately, it is simply too low and needs to
be increased, and funding for mental health supports for RHY should be
permanently added to the DYCD budget. As shown below (Appendix 3), Thrive NYC mental
health funds budget for assistance to 564 young people across six separate
youth drop-ins. However, some drop-ins serve that many young people in a
handful of months. Similarly, these funds budget for assistance to 216 youth in
crisis shelters, but the City serves many, many more young people each year in
its crisis shelters. Finally, these funds budget for 309 youth served through
TIL beds. However, TIL beds serve far more young people than this. While the
$2.2 million allocation by the City is an important intervention, there is a
significant need for further investment in mental health supports, as well as
case management supports. The De Blasio Administration’s Policing Strategy
Harms Homeless Youth Unfortunately, given the reality of homelessness right
now, it would be insufficient not to address what happens to those young people
who are surviving on the streets of the five boroughs. New York City’s working
class and poor residents – overwhelmingly people of color – continue to
experience housing, labor market and public benefit dynamics that are producing
homelessness. Street homeless individuals continue to experience harassment by
police. The Mayor’s commitment to the ‘broken windows’ philosophy of policing
results in the continued criminalization of poor and working class people,
primarily people of color. Homeless young people – overwhelmingly youth of
color, across the board extremely poor in wealth, disproportionately LGBTQI,
and all in their younger years of life – experience the implementation of Mayor
De Blasio’s commitment to racialized policing practices both violently and
acutely.32 A relatively recent pronouncement regarding turnstile jumping is
particularly illustrative of how the Mayor’s policing philosophy impacts the
lives of homeless young people.
A
recent New York Times article quoted Mayor De Blasio as stating: “A lot of
people who commit fare evasion and the police encounter have a lot of money on
them.” De Blasio continued, “I think I have a lot of validity on the question
of income inequality and how we fight it, but you never heard me say, you know,
open up the gates of the subway for free. That’s chaos.” Mayor De Blasio’s
comments ring remarkably tone-deaf and inaccurate in regards to homeless young
people. A 2015 training manual by the Association of Pro Bono Counsel has a
section for lawyers serving RHY in its most recent manual focused specifically
on transit violations because of the significant connection between RHY
survival and access to public transit.33 A decisive study discussing the
matter, published by the Urban Institute, stated the following: The vast
majority of offenses for which the youth were arrested and charged were similar
to those reported by the young woman quoted above: quality of life crimes
(e.g., jumping the turnstile, carrying open containers, and trespassing) and
other misdemeanors (e.g., marijuana possession, shoplifting, and violating a
court order). More often than not, these crimes were associated with the young
person being homeless or impoverished and not having the resources to, for
example, pay for subway fare or access stable and safe housing.34 As recent
research by the Community Service Society has made so clear, and as organizers
and activists in New York City have been stating for years, targeting those who
jump the turnstile is a matter of the intersections of racism, class
oppression, heterosexism and policing philosophy.35 Homeless youth,
particularly youth of color and LGBTQI youth, often find their way into contact
with the police, jails and courts in part because of policing that targets
crimes of poverty. It is also important to note that many cisgender and
straightidentified homeless young people – particularly youth of color – also
experience police engagement due to crimes of poverty, like turnstile jumping.
Turnstile jumping, or “fare evasion,” is only one example of many that could be
given to show how the police targeting of survival crimes brings homeless young
people into interactions with the criminal justice system. Current Legislation
It seems important to note from the outset how disappointing it is to see that
Speaker Johnson has dropped language in a preceding and similar bill (Int.
1700), which would have implemented a right to shelter for RHY.36 While Speaker
Johnson initially called for a right to shelter – Int. 1700 simply stated: “The
department shall provide shelter services to all runaway and homeless youth who
request such shelter from the department” – the bill language has now been
rewritten for the new bill being considered today, and now mandates that “the
department shall develop and submit to the speaker of the council and post on
its website a plan to provide shelter services to all runaway youth and
homeless youth who request such shelter from the department…” This is a full
backtrack from a bill calling for a right to shelter. Additional comments on
each bill are below: • Preconsidered Int: In relation to time frames for
runaway and homeless youth shelter services (CM Gibson & Speaker Johnson).
This bill extends the length of time that RHY can stay in shelters (crisis and
transitional). The City has recently implemented an extension of shelter-stays.
However, this should be written into law to prevent any changes that may come
with budget woes or future administrations that are hostile to welfare
expenditures and unsupportive of homeless services. • Preconsidered Int.: In
relation to runaway and homeless youth services for homeless young adults (CM
Torres & Speaker Johnson). This bill increases the shelter-access age
through 24 years old. Youth-specific shelters are more attuned to the needs of
homeless youth than the adult shelter system is. The adult shelter system’s
diversionary model is particularly problematic in regards to supporting young
people. Decisively, to ensure providers are not tasked with the City’s job,
language in the bill should be explicit in ensuring that DYCD is responsible
for providing the necessary resources, and not providers. Given that at least
one DYCD official has publicly stated they do not support raising the age of
RHY shelters unless there is additional money, there is reason to be concerned
that this vague language could put this demand on providers rather than DYCD.
DYCD’s budget should be increased to ensure this need can be met. •
Preconsidered Int.: In relation to shelter for runaway and homeless youth
(Speaker Johnson). This bill would require necessary reporting by DYCD. However,
the language should be made clearer in various sections. A guidepost for
considering changes to the reporting would be the use of the categories found
in Appendix 2, which shows the way DYCD currently breaks down this data. Some
specific edits to this language should include: 1: The “service needs of the
current population” should explicitly state public benefits such as SNAP,
Medicaid and cash assistance; youth accessing DSS’s WeCare program for
individuals with limitations in work; youth receiving, or in application or
appeals processes for disability benefits; youth needs for legal support,
whether criminal or civil. 2: DYCD already reports on much of this data (see,
for example, appendices below) but does not voluntarily make it public and does
not de-duplicate it in ways that are easily understandable. Further, the
reporting options for discharge-types are confusing in combination – for
example, the “Other Residential/Supportive Housing Category.” This section
should explicitly state that this data should include unduplicated individuals
by discharge-type. This section should expand its discharge categories to
include other shelter systems beyond DHS. This section should include a
separate category for supportive housing, and ideally by supportive housing
type. This bill would also request DYCD to develop and design a capacity plan.
However, this is a far cry from a right to shelter, and given the City’s
refusal to invest in a realistic count of RHY, this kind of bill language is
not likely to result in the necessary resource allocation. This bill language
does not mandate the City to provide age-appropriate shelter on demand. The
language in the bill relies on the use §21-404 of the City’s administrative
code, which specifies data contours for a forthcoming and ongoing report of
youth shelter turnaways. While this information is decisive for planning, it
does not provide sufficient information from which to develop a capacity plan.
To adequately develop a capacity plan there will need to be some sense of the
number of RHY in the City. The City only accepts its own – remarkably austere,
problematic, and entirely questionable – data on that matter. As mentioned
above, the City chooses not to invest in an accurate count of homeless young
people, so we cannot expect that any capacity plan relying on DYCD’s – or DHS’s
(HOPE) – numbers will result in a realistic resource allocation. We can expect
that relying on current City methodologies and numbers will result in an insufficient
resource allocation for RHY, continuing many of the same issues that underlie
this hearing. A right to shelter for RHY is necessary to ensure that a young
person is never turned away from a safe place to sleep. Additional Needs While
I testify in strong support of the legislation currently under discussion,
there are additional needs for resources targeted to the RHY population that
are not yet being legislated. Some key needs are as follows: • Investment In
Shelter Placement Mechanisms: As discussed at the beginning of this testimony,
the City has a haphazard and remarkably insufficient system in place for
helping RHY access a bed on demand. One immediate step the City should
implement is a 24-hour hotline solely for the purpose of connecting RHY to outreach,
beds, and other crisis resources. • Housing resources: New York City must
provide RHY with resources to exit youth homelessness before it becomes chronic
adult homelessness. These resources include access to local rental subsidies
and equitable and fair access to supportive housing for those who are eligible
(e.g. the City should end its facilitation of creaming by providers, and
providers should be prevent from creaming). This would also include priority
access to NYCHA and Section 8 subsides. Additionally, New York City must fund
housing specialists in all RHY facilities to ensure that youth have housing
assistance at every turn. Currently, the City is awaiting state approval of its
proposal to change its rental aid programs, which DYCD has stated will include
RHY. However, the details are unknown and there is reason to believe, from
previous statements by City staff, that this language will only include youth
in DYCD shelters. These resources should be made available through DYCD drop-in
centers, where many older RHY access assistance. Assistance with benefits: New York City must
provide RHY with resources for navigating and advocating with the public
benefits programs. This includes funding services for attaching RHY to
Medicaid, SNAP and cash assistance where needed. As importantly, the City must
provide assistance for attaching RHY to local and federal disability programs.
• LGBTQI-competency: New York City must ensure that all services providers
interacting with RHY are trained in LGBTQI competency. Thorough competency in
serving LGBTQ youth must be reinforced for every program and all City personnel
engaging RHY. • Additional mental health supports: While the Thrive NYC Program
has assisted with some resources for RHY, there is a significant need for an
increase in mental health services provided to RHY. This includes an increased
number of therapists and psychiatrists funded by the City to engage this
population. Thank you for listening to my testimony. I look forward to any
questions you may have.
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