State Senate group pushes rent help program for families facing eviction

Pols issue shocking report on facilities for homeless

January 27, 2017 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

State Sen. Diane Savino says she was shocked to discover that many of the places where the city houses homeless families contain numerous safety violations. Eagle file photo by Paula Katinas

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Members of the state Senate’s Independent Democratic Conference are advocating for the adoption of a five-point plan they developed aimed at combating the unsafe conditions under which the city provides temporary housing for homeless people.

The IDC, which includes two senators representing Brooklyn, Diane Savino and Jesse Hamilton, issued its five-point plan alongside a scathing report called “Horrors in Homeless Housing,” which detailed what the lawmakers charge are deplorable conditions in hotels and so-called cluster sites the city uses to house the homeless.

Cluster sites are temporary apartment that are used to house homeless people.

In response to their investigation findings, IDC members are proposing a legislative program focusing on preventing homelessness, finding new housing and planning.

The proposal includes instituting changes to the Home Stability Support (HSS) initiative, a program that provides a rent supplement for families and individuals who are facing eviction, are currently homeless, or who have lost housing due to domestic violence or other life-threatening conditions.

The IDC will introduce legislation to ensure that domestic violence survivors are included in the HSS program. The proposed legislation will also include an expansion of anti-discrimination laws in housing and will offer a preference in the New York City Housing Lottery to people living in shelter. The bill would also require a survey of homelessness across New York state.

The investigation, led by IDC Chairman state Sen. Jeff Klein (D-Bronx-Westchester), analyzed inspection data in commercial hotels and cluster sites. Using the city’s shelter scorecard system, IDC investigators identified these sites and examined their Housing Preservation and Development, Department of Buildings and Environmental Control Board violations.

The violations included unsafe cooking spaces, toilets that didn’t flush, lead paint contamination and broken fire escapes, according to the IDC report.

The investigation found that 78 percent of the hotels the city uses to house the homeless had a total of 433 violations.

But violations found at cluster sites were worse, according to the report, which cited the fact that 93 percent of those apartment investigated had violations. Shockingly, cluster sites had nearly six times as many violations as hotels and averaged 68 violations per site.

“It is unconscionable to allow children and families to be forced to live in these violation-ridden hotels and cluster sites,” said Savino (D-Coney Island-Bensonhurst, Staten Island). “These sites lack the basic services that homeless families should have access to and make living a normal life difficult, if not impossible.”

The Galaxy Motel, located at 860 Pennsylvania Ave., with 16 violations, was one of the top ten hotels, in terms of the number of violations, in the IDC report.

Four Brooklyn locations were on the IDC’s list of the top ten violators among cluster sites.

The locations and the number of violations were: LCG Brooklyn, at 1801 Pitkin Ave. (144 violations); Brooklyn Acacia Cluster, at 2063 Nostrand Ave. (142 violations); Monica House II Women in Need, at 899 Montgomery Ave. (113 violations); and Monica House II Women in Need, at 434 Schenectady Ave. (112 violations).

“We need to stop using hotels, cluster sites and temporary housing and instead advance real solutions to our affordable housing crisis. Three of the top ten cluster site violators are in communities I represent in Crown Heights and Brownsville,” said Hamilton (D-Crown Heights-Brownsville, Park Slope). “Our neighbors are living in buildings with more than 100 open violations. Nobody should live like this.”

Klein said the IDC’s proposed solutions would provide a more humane approach to the city’s homeless problem.

“The proposal will also ensure that those on the brink of losing their home will be able to remain where they are living, adding much needed stability to their lives,” he said.