New Procedure a Common Sense Response to a Long-Standing Problem that Diverts Resources from Those in Need

August 5, 2005 – Department of Homeless Services (DHS) Commissioner Linda Gibbs announced that City attorneys asked State Supreme Court Justice Helen Freedman today to clear the way for the City to implement the final recommendation made by a court-appointed special master panel to fix the intake and eligibility processes for families with children seeking shelter. That recommendation, made when the Panel released its June 2004 Emergency Assistance Unit and Shelter Eligibility Report, urged the City to “[d]evelop a process for handling families who are ineligible for shelter, offering assistance to ease their transition back to the community without provision of shelter.”

The City today asked the Judge to rule that a new procedure, contained in State administrative directive 05-ADM-07, is consistent with court orders and local laws.

“The eligibility determination process is rendered virtually meaningless by the fact that every family, homeless or not, can receive continuous shelter, even if they have just been found ineligible after an extensive review of their case,” stated Commissioner Linda Gibbs. “The panel’s final recommendation is a common sense and carefully considered part of making the entire intake system work better for all families, eligible and ineligible alike.”

The Problem
The City seeks to implement the new procedure for re-applying families to address a major imbalance in the family intake and eligibility processes. When families today submit an application, they receive a provisional shelter stay while the City investigates their eligibility status for the family shelter system. All families, homeless or not, receive these placements during every shelter application, even if they have recently been found ineligible for shelter services. Under the new procedure, the City would continue offering a provisional shelter stay to 1) new applicants and 2) families who have been found ineligible for shelter within the last 90 days but who have an immediate need. Re-applying families with no immediate need – those in crowded or “doubled up” living arrangements, for example – would remain in existing housing as their eligibility for emergency shelter is assessed.

The special master panel noted in its report that multiple applications on the part of ineligible applicants result in multiple overnight placements that, in turn, “compromise child well being, disrupt family life, and result in considerable costs to the city in application processing and shelter placements.”

Background
In June 2004, the special master panel issued a comprehensive set of reform recommendations, meant to be implemented in their entirety. These recommendations included:

• Designing a new facility,
  
• Enhancing preventive opportunities for applicant families,
  
• Strengthening the eligibility determination process,
  
• Implementing new client protections, and
  
• Establishing new services for ineligible families to help them transition back to the community without provision of shelter.

Over the past year, DHS has implemented all but the final recommendation. A temporary intake center, called the Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) Office, opened in November 2004 and has resulted in vastly improved results for applicant families. For example, overnight placements for new applicant families have been virtually eliminated and the amount of time it takes to process a family’s application has gone from days to hours. In addition, for two and a half years straight the Agency has prevented any family with a child from remaining overnight in an intake office, ending this historically pervasive occurrence.

Building on these reforms, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has placed $30 million into the Agency’s capital budget to build a permanent intake center. Esteemed architectural firm Polchek Partnership has been selected to design the permanent facility, which will feature open and airy spaces that emphasize natural light to improve the environment for applicant families. Polchek Pathership also designed the new entryway to the Brooklyn Museum, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, and the Rose Center for Earth and Science at the American Museum of Natural History.

“For too long, too many families applying for shelter have suffered an incoherent intake process patched together by 20 years of court orders and administrative policies,” said Commissioner Gibbs. “The Panel recommendations offered a historic and holistic approach. They were sensible, responsible, and compassionate – and meant to be enacted in their totality. This final recommendation will make or break the reform effort, and we are hopeful the Judge will see that it makes little sense to perpetuate practices that have failed families at the EAU for years.”