WARY OF THE SHUTDOWN
Rensselaer County homeless shelters wary of long-term government shutdown
RENSSELAER COUNTY, N.Y. >> The partial U.S. government shutdown is in its 22nd day, Saturday, marking a record for the longest lapse in government funding.
The closure continues during a stalemate over President Donald Trump’s border wall. It also comes a day after nearly 800,000 federal workers have be- gun missing paychecks.
Locally the shutdown could affect non-profits such as Joseph’s House & Shelter and St. Paul’s Center in Rensselaer County, should it persist long term. Both receive federal funds from Housing and Urban Development.
While Joseph’s House & Shelter hasn’t received any homeless requests from federal workers, the impact could potentially trickle down to those in subsidized housing.
“We do receive federal funds directly through HUD, they have enough to cover this month, but we’re anxious if it goes past this month if we’re going to be able to draw down our reimbursements next month and that applies not only to us as a non-profit agency, but there are a number of people, there are 178 formerly homeless individuals that are living in subsidized housing and we’re anxious about those subsidies as well going into February. Hopefully, this will be resolved quickly, but we are looking at it very close,” Joseph’s House & Shelter Executive Director Kevin O’Connor said of the funding impact.
O’Connor also says highdensity population areas including, the Capital Region, have seen an uptick in homelessness.
“HUD just released its annual point in time count, which is an accounting of all Americans who are homeless on the same day, they just released that to Congress this week. It shows a modest increase nationally of 0.3 percent. A lot of that has to do with the cost of housing and affordability, so we need more affordable housing in Troy and in the Capital District if we’re really going to do anything serious about homelessness,” O’Connor said of a reason for an increase in homelessness.
Rensselaer County and the Capital District will be doing its point in time count for a 24 hour period starting on Jan. 24 at noon, running through Jan. 25 at 11:59 a.m.
“We’re currently training volunteers for that, the AmeriCorps program at Siena College is partnering with us this year. What we do is we count everybody at the shelter, that’s easy, but the people that are unsheltered, code blue helps us because the unsheltered people are drawn if it’s really cold and in climate weather, but there are still people out there so we go out into the community, we follow footsteps into the snow in abandoned housing and places like that and try to make contact with individuals and collect data and we relay that data down and back to the federal government. We protect people’s identity, but we count unique people and their circumstances of homelessness,” O’Connor said of the counting process.
St. Paul’s Center Executive Director Tracy Pitcher also noted how the lack of funding could pose a major chain of ramifications for families who are homeless or right on the edge and ultimately taxpayers in the county as well.
“Like Joseph’s House, St. Paul’s Center receives HUD funding for one of our housing programs. Our scattered- site permanent supportive housing program works with local landlords to provide housing to homeless families while the HUD funding provides monthly rental assistance. Additionally, the HUD funding covers a portion of our expense to deliver case management support to those families,” Pitcher said of how the HUD funding affects the operation of their pro-
grams.
“Should the shutdown continue for some time, an organization without adequate reserves to cover such a program expense without reimbursement could cause cash flow issues. It will require much negotiation with landlords so that families are not evicted, which would throw the family once again into homelessness. In that instance, the cost burden to house a homeless family falls to the County and ultimately, the County taxpayer. That’s the finan-
cial impact which does not even touch on the emotional impact on a family who experiences homelessness again – especially the children who are traumatized by the feelings of uncertainty brought on by homelessness,” Pitcher noted of what an elongated shutdown might mean.
“Financially, St. Paul’s
Center is fine and if needed, we can cover the added expense for some time. However a protracted shutdown, as the President has threatened, will cause financial hardships on organizations, potentially staff who may have to be furloughed, on landlords... the impact will be broad and deep,” Pitcher added.