January 30, 2004 - Department of Homeless Services (DHS) Commissioner Linda Gibbs today announced the release of a request for proposals to establish ground breaking, neighborhood-based homeless prevention services in six communities with high incidences of homelessness. These investment communities, which together account for one of every four homeless families entering shelter, are the South Bronx, East Tremont/Belmont, Bedford Stuyvesant, Bushwick, East Harlem, and Jamaica. The Household Stability Initiative will provide six $2 million awards to qualified community-based organizations charged with assisting those at-risk, particularly non-lease holding individuals and families in "doubled up" living situations, through targeted services and financial assistance. The program is the first phase of the Bloomberg Administration&'s efforts to shift the City's primary response to homelessness away from shelter toward cost-effective, neighborhood-based solutions.

“For too long the City’s response to homelessness has been shelter as a first and often only line of response,” said Commissioner Gibbs. “We’re investing in new solutions to age old problems – and those investments must be at the community level where those at risk can be identified and served before their housing crisis results in homelessness. We’re setting records at placing homeless families into permanent housing, now we’re going to the community to help families and individuals avoid homelessness in the first place.”

While the City continues to assist thousands of individuals in overcoming homelessness by placing record numbers of homeless families into permanent housing and steady placements of single adults, demand for shelter continues to grow unabated. Through the Household Stability Initiative, DHS will direct resources to qualified community organizations charged with assisting high risk community members by 1) providing casework services aimed at stabilizing existing households, 2) issuing short-term financial assistance to address an immediate need that may result in the loss of housing, and 3) helping clients locate and access existing community-based programs that may bring greater housing stability, such as job training, financial literacy, credit counseling, anti-eviction, and veterans’ services programs.

“This program is, first and foremost, about helping individuals and families stabilize existing housing and avoid the trauma of homelessness,” continued Commissioner Gibbs. “We’re asking qualified community-based organizations to design community-specific approaches that incorporate new resources while building on the strengths and existing services already present in the community."

The proposal not only advances administration efforts to implement a “prevention first” model, but incorporates multiple recommendations made by the Family Homelessness Special Master Panel in McCain litigation, which released a comprehensive report on homelessness prevention in November 2003. That report encouraged the City to embrace community-based and early intervention strategies, as well as to target efforts to address the needs of non-lease holding families and young female heads of household.

“We are delighted that the city has moved forward with this effort to prevent families from becoming homeless and entering shelter,” said Gail Nayowith of the Family Homelessness Special Master Panel. “The initiative implements the priority recommendations of the DHS 2002 Strategic Plan echoed in the first report of the Special Master Panel. It also represents a significant effort on the part of the city and counsel for homeless family plaintiffs to reach consensus on a strategy to resolve the crisis of homelessness outside the courtroom. The innovative approach the city advances in its RFP, targets high-risk neighborhoods and provides families with resources they need to remain housed and avoid the dislocating effects of homelessness on children and families.”

The initiative will have a strong evaluation component and, in order to ensure program accountability, provider budgets will be adjusted annually based on the outcomes achieved for clients and by comparing demand for shelter originating from the community district served with that community district’s historical levels of demand and concurrent citywide trends of demand. The request for proposals was released this week. The deadline for submissions is March 19, 2004.