Comptroller Stringer Audit Uncovers Hazardous Conditions in City Homeless Shelters for Families with Infants

 

Audit of New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelters found unsafe sleep conditions and other hazards jeopardizing infants’ health and safety

Cluttered and unsafe cribs, exposed electrical outlets, mold and mildew, vermin infestation, and accessible hazardous substances found in units where infants reside

Comptroller recommends 10 actions to protect infants’ health and safety

 New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer released an audit of infant safety within the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelter system, revealing widespread hazardous conditions in sampled shelters where infants reside – including exposed electrical outlets, mold and mildew, vermin infestations, broken or missing window guards, and unsafe cribs. The Comptroller’s auditors found deficiencies raising health and safety concerns in all 13 shelters they visited and 92 percent of the 91 units they inspected, including 32 units with 4 or more safety concerns in 11 shelters. The audit also found that non-compliant shelter operators faced no apparent consequences; five of the 13 shelters in the audit sample were allowed to continue doing business with the City after receiving poor performance evaluations from DHS.

Comptroller Stringer recommended ten measures to protect the safety and wellbeing of infants in City shelters, including action by DHS to ensure that providers inspect all units where infants reside weekly, promptly correct all deficiencies found, and properly instruct all families with infants on safe sleep practices promptly after they enter a shelter.

“As a parent, I find the conditions we uncovered shameful, distressing and unacceptable. Our young children are the most vulnerable among us; they rely completely on us, as adults, to protect and care for them. Our investigation into infant safety in homeless shelters found that the City has utterly failed in its responsibility,” said New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer. “It is a stain on this City that babies in our care are sleeping alongside vermin, breathing in mold and mildew, and playing near live electrical outlets. Even one child exposed to these conditions is too many, but our audit found safety violations in 92 percent of the units we inspected. Families experiencing homelessness enter the shelter system seeking safety and stability in their time of need, and we must not allow a child’s first days and months to be spent in an environment that poses a direct threat to their health and wellbeing. I urge the City to immediately correct this unacceptable state of affairs and adopt the recommendations outlined in this report to protect the young lives in shelter care. We don’t have a second to waste.”

During Fiscal Year 2019, DHS managed two City-operated and 155 provider-operated shelters that served families with children. In that period, DHS provided shelter to approximately 25,661 families with approximately 46,454 children including 4,824 infants. The audit found that the providers of the 13 sampled shelters failed to ensure the safety and wellbeing of infants in the sampled shelters. The audit identified crib-related deficiencies, missing safe sleep posters, exposed electrical outlets, mold and mildew, vermin infestation, and accessible hazardous substances in the units where infants lived. Auditors found that 11 of the sampled shelters had no records to show that 638 (44 percent) of the 1,445 of the required weekly inspections had been performed for 86 noncompliant units. In addition, shelter management often failed to update the Client Assistance and Rehousing Enterprise System (CARES) timely to record the arrival of newborn infants in the shelters and ensure that appropriate safeguards, such as approved cribs, safe sleep videos and posters, and weekly inspections, were promptly put in place, and that DHS’ records of the families and infants present in its shelters were accurate.

According to DHS, approximately 50 infants in New York City die from preventable, sleep-related injuries each year. DHS participates in a Safe Sleep Initiative that the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) initiated in or around 2015. As part of that initiative, in 2018, DHS issued its “Safe Sleep Policy on Infants in Shelters for Families with Children,” to provide shelters with guidelines for safe sleep practices for infants. The Safe Sleep Policy includes provisions such as the use of stationary or portable cribs for the safety and wellbeing of infants whose families reside at a shelter. DHS also requires shelters to show families a safe sleep video within 48 hours of their arrival. Shelters are required to have each family sign a Safe Sleep Education Acknowledgment and Crib Acceptance/Refusal Form. If a family decides to use its own crib, shelters must obtain approval from DHS. DHS also requires shelters to conduct weekly unit inspections for families with infants. Shelters must document such inspections by entering a unit inspection note in CARES maintained by DHS and maintaining hard copies of the completed inspection forms within each client’s physical file.

Comptroller Stringer’s audit found the following deficiencies in DHS shelters for families with children:

• Inspection of 91 randomly selected units with infants at 13 shelters found 264 deficiencies, including –
  • Unsafe sleep conditions, such as nonuse and the improper use, placement, and condition of cribs, and the absence of required safe sleep posters; and
  • Inadequate unit conditions, including exposed electrical outlets and sharp edges, mold and mildew, vermin infestation, missing and broken window guards, accessible hazardous substances, and dirty and cluttered units.
• At least one deficiency was found in 92 percent of units inspected.
• All 13 shelters visited had deficiencies, including 32 units with 4 or more safety concerns in 11 shelters.
• Shelter management often did not update CARES in a timely manner to reflect arrival of newborn infants residing in their shelters.
• Shelters did not inform families of safe sleep protocols.
• Shelters did not consistently perform or document the required unit inspections.

Despite poor performance evaluation scores for five of the 13 shelters in our sample, all 5 shelters were nevertheless offered opportunities to continue doing business with the City. If the conditions found at the sampled shelters are consistent with conditions at the remaining shelters contracted by DHS, the City faces an increased risk that providers managing shelters throughout the City are offering inadequate housing to homeless families.

In response to these alarming findings, Comptroller Stringer recommended 10 actions to DHS ensure the safety of infants in their care. The recommendations included:

• DHS should ensure that the shelter providers promptly inspect and correct the conditions that raise safety and health concerns in the 13 sampled shelters identified.
• DHS should update, and enforce, its written policies and procedures to include a specific timeframe in which shelters must update their records in CARES, any successor system, and other records to account for the presence of all infants. The written policies and procedures should cover, at a minimum, updates to the family composition records, and a standard, readily searchable, contemporaneous record of the date every infant, including every newborn, begins residing in the shelter.
• Shelters should ensure that they play the prescribed safe sleep instructional video for all families with infants and then obtain properly completed Safe Sleep Education/Acknowledgment and Crib Acceptance/Refusal Forms on time from all families with infants and that they use only the updated form DHS prescribes.
• Shelters should ensure that they perform the required weekly unit inspections, that they document the results in a timely manner, and that they take prompt corrective action to address the deficiencies they find.
• DHS should establish and enforce consequences for noncompliance with infant safety policies.

To read Comptroller Stringer’s report on DHS’ care of infants residing in the shelter system, click here.