Homeless $olution falls flat

Only 31 families placed in kin’s & friends’ homes

Nearly a year after the city launched a holiday-season program to pay relatives or friends to take in the homeless, just 31 families have qualified and moved out of shelters, The Post has learned.

City officials said 117 families applied for the program as of Oct. 10 from an initial pool of roughly 5,000 that had been living in shelters for at least 90 days.

One possible reason: the new homes have to be within the five boroughs.

Officials say the tab for the initiative — about $280,000 so far, excluding administrative costs — is far cheaper than housing families in shelters.

“We spend almost $40,000 a year for a family to be in shelter. We’d like to take a chunk of that money, give it to another one of their family members to bring them into their own home or apartment. And it’s a much more conducive setting, particularly for children,” Mayor de Blasio told WNYC radio in December 2016, within a week of the program’s launch.

“I think that’s going to get a lot of pickup,” he said.

While the program initially focused on a home-for-the-holidays theme, it’s now a year-round initiative known as “Pathway Home.”

The eligibility criteria include having lived in a shelter for at least 90 days, and not earned more than 200 percent of the federal poverty rate — which is $24,600 for a family of four in 2017, result- ing in a cutoff of $49,200.

So far, the participating host families have been issued an average of $8,000 each to assist them with their rent for up to a year, while the homeless families got $1,000 gift cards to ease their move.

Charnel Lucas, a member of the advocacy group Picture the Homeless, questioned how the program can be effective when people aren’t allowed to enter the homeless shelter system if they have relatives who can take them in.

“It’s good to hear that 31 families did get the opportunity to get out of the system,” said Lucas, 50, who has been homeless for five years.

“[But] the programs and things that the administration comes up with — we would really like to be in on some of those conversations, because we really have solutions to solve some of these problems.”

Homeless officials said the program was one of many that transition people into more stable living environments.

Those who participate remain eligible to get their own apartments through other voucher or subsidy initiatives.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution to homelessness, and this is one of many tools we’re using to help our homeless neighbors get back on their feet,” said Human Resources Administration spokesman Isaac McGinn.

City records show that 60,279 people were housed in homeless shelters on Nov. 9 — including nearly 23,000 children.