Outreach teams increase monthly placements by 31% in Fiscal Year 2017, averaging 248 placements per month
The de Blasio Administration today announced that nearly 1,500 street homeless New Yorkers have successfully transitioned off the streets and into safer, more stable environments, including transitional programs and permanent housing, as a result of the persistent, dedicated efforts of HOME-STAT outreach teams across the five boroughs. From the spring of 2016 through November 2017, through strong collaboration between the Department of Homeless Services, the New York City Police Department, Agency partners, and not-for-profit social service providers, the City has placed a total of 1,480 New Yorkers experiencing street homelessness into permanent housing or transitional settings, all of whom remain off the streets—thanks to new investments in outreach programs and providers, a dramatic increase in dedicated shelter capacity, and a doubling in the number of outreach staff deployed around the clock in all five boroughs.
“It can take dozens or more contacts to convince homeless New Yorkers to come in off the streets and into permanent housing,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “This new milestone proves that our strategy is working and that the growing partnership between the NYPD and our homeless outreach workers is producing more contacts and more transitions from streets and subways into shelter for homeless New Yorkers. The problem wasn’t created overnight and won’t be solved overnight, but we’re headed in the right direction.”
“Through persistence, compassion, and this Administration’s unprecedented commitment of resources to street and subway outreach efforts, the City has helped nearly 1,500 homeless New Yorkers come in from the streets and into transitional programs or permanent housing,” said Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks. “Since launching HOME-STAT, the most comprehensive outreach program in the country, we have dramatically increased our investment in dedicated street homeless programs, doubling the number of outreach staff working around the clock in all five boroughs, tripling the number of specialized beds supporting street homeless New Yorkers, and enhancing our partnerships with the NYPD, other City Agencies and not-for-profit service providers to reach more New Yorkers more frequently. We continue to use every tool at our disposal to build the trust and individual relationships that will encourage homeless New Yorkers to come off the streets and out of the subways.”
In December 2015, the City initiated HOME-STAT (Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement Street Action Teams), a citywide multiagency initiative to combat street homelessness in which hundreds of highly-trained not-for-profit outreach staff, including licensed social workers, canvass the streets 24/7/365, proactively engaging homeless New Yorkers, offering services and assistance, and working to gain their trust with the goal of addressing the underlying issues that may have caused or contributed to their street homelessness in order to ultimately help these individuals transition off the streets.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to ending homelessness. With a dedicated not-for-profit provider for each borough (the Manhattan Outreach Consortium, led by CUCS in partnership with Goddard-Riverside, in Manhattan; Breaking Ground in Brooklyn and Queens; BronxWorks in the Bronx; Project Hospitality on Staten Island; and BRC in the subways), HOME-STAT outreach teams working around the clock across the five boroughs, building relationships by making regular—often daily—contact with street homeless New Yorkers: getting to know them, developing trust, and sharing information about the resources available to them.
Not-for-profit outreach provider partners and outreach teams also have psychiatrists who perform psychiatric evaluations on the streets and thereby help outreach teams understand and better meet the individual needs of each street homeless New Yorker. These clinicians and psychiatrists help outreach teams make more effective connections with clients who may be difficult to engage, in many cases due to significant mental health challenges. HOME-STAT also provides aftercare services, continuing to work with individuals who receive placements to ensure that they get the supports they need to remain in housing and off of the street.
Since 2014, the de Blasio Administration has committed unprecedented new resources to street outreach programs and providers:
· Increasing joint outreach operations with City Agency partners to utilize each Agency’s expertise, engage more New Yorkers, and offer more supports. As part of our HOME-STAT efforts, DHS regularly performs joint operations with community stakeholders and Agency partners, including the NYPD, the Parks Department, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the Department of Transportation. Earlier this month, DHS and NYPD expanded joint outreach operations in Midtown, Manhattan to seven days per week, further increasing the number of individuals with whom the City is constantly engaged as well as the number of contacts made in the effort to encourage homeless New Yorkers to accept services and transition indoors.
· More than doubling the City’s investment in street homeless programs, increasing by more than $53M (119%) from $44.6M in FY14 to more than $97.6M in FY18.
· Nearly tripling the number of beds dedicated to supporting street homeless New Yorkers citywide since 2014, with hundreds of beds opened during this Administration, hundreds more coming online this year, and an additional commitment to another 250 beds, increasing the operating total from roughly 600 beds to nearly 1,800 beds.
· More than doubling the number of outreach staff canvassing the streets engaging New Yorkers 24/7/365 since 2014, from 191 to nearly 400. Those outreach staff spend months building relationships by making regular—often daily—contact with street homeless New Yorkers: getting to know them, building trust, and sharing information about the resources available to them. It can take months of persistent and compassionate engagement to successfully connect street homeless individuals with City services (5 months on average).
· Building the City’s first-ever by-name list of individuals known to be homeless and residing on the streets to improve delivery of services. Central to the HOME-STAT effort, these outreach teams continue to build the City’s first-ever by-name list of individuals known to be homeless and residing on the streets, more effectively enabling the teams to directly and repeatedly engage New Yorkers in need where they are, continually offering supports and case management resources while developing the trust and relationships that will ultimately encourage these individuals to accept services and transition off of the streets. As part of that by-name list, outreach teams now know more than 2,000 individuals by name who are confirmed to be homeless and living on the streets and are actively engaging more than 1,500 individuals encountered on the streets to evaluate their living situations and determine whether they are homeless as well as what specific supports they may need.
· Helping nearly 1,500 individuals off the streets who’ve remained off the streets. In the roughly year-and-a-half since the launch of HOME-STAT in Spring 2016, the City has helped 1,480 people transition off the streets into transitional programs or permanent housing, due in part to a doubling in the number of street homeless outreach workers dedicated to cultivating relationships with our street homeless neighbors and connecting them with the services they need.
Accepting outreach efforts, including services that will help homeless New Yorkers transition indoors from the streets, is voluntary. It can take months of persistent and compassionate engagement and hundreds of contacts to successfully connect street homeless individuals with City services. Together, the City and not-for-profit outreach service provider partners remain undeterred in the ongoing effort to engage unsheltered New Yorkers proactively, offering services and support, until making the connection that will help them transition off the streets and out of the subways. HOME-STAT outreach teams continue to reach-out to these New Yorkers to offer services and help them come indoors.
