Fight over homeless Gov promotes his plan, but advocates seek more
WALBANY — Amid a battle over the state’s handling of the homelessness crisis, Gov. Cuomo is touting his administration’s efforts to boost affordable housing.
As advocates and lawmakers call on Cuomo (inset) to raise taxes on the wealthy and subsidize programs that could assist the homeless and those at risk of eviction, the administration said Wednesday construction is complete or underway on 56,000 affordable homes and funding approved for thousands of supportive housing units.
The updated numbers are part of Cuomo’s five-year, $20 billion plan to combat homelessness and create or preserve more than 100,000 affordable homes and 6,000 providing supportive services.
The state is “tackling the affordable housing and homelessness issue at its core, expanding housing and ensuring resources are available to provide our most vulnerable New Yorkers with the opportunity to get in a home and stay there,” the governor said in a statement.
Advocates have criticized the plan in the past, arguing the numbers released by the administration are misleading because a large part of the $20 billion is annual baseline spending — including money for shelters — and note that Cuomo initially pledged to provide 20,000 units of supportive housing.
Shelly Nortz, deputy executive director at the New York Coalition for the Homeless, implored the governor to look at new ways to combat the crisis.
“Unfortunately, the plan Gov. Cuomo touts is terribly inadequate relative to the magnitude of the need,” Nortz told the Daily News. “It is enormously frustrating to have such an uphill battle when everyone across New York State agrees that we need much more housing assistance like HSS vouchers, and for the remaining 14,000 units of permanent supportive housing to be brought online much more quickly.”
Homelessness continues to rise in the Empire State at unprecedented levels, according to advocates and data from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HUD’s annual homelessness census released last fall found roughly 78,604 people in the city were without permanent homes as of January 2019.
The number of people staying in city shelters each night has risen by 60% between 2011 and 2019, an increase of more than 23,000 children and adults, advocates say.
Statewide, nearly 253,000 New Yorkers were homeless at some point during the 20182019 school year, staying in shelters or with friends or family, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.
Homeless advocates, touting public support for raising taxes on the rich to fund a plethora of proposals related to homelessness and other issues, rallied in Albany Wednesday as lawmakers host a housing-focused budget hearing.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and several Democratic Assembly members joined hundreds of advocates in calling on Cuomo to boost funds for public housing and to support measures such as a just-introduced bill that would create a new state-managed housing voucher program to assist the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless.
Another measure, known as the Home Stability Support program and supported by the Coalition for the Homeless, would create a new rent subsidy to help keep people in their homes.