Photo Courtesy of Edwin Torres/Mayoral Photography Office
Mayor de Blasio said that, after seven months, “HOME-STAT has already proven to be an essential lifeline” for connecting homeless to housing and services.
By Michael V. Cusenza
Still smarting from the fusillade of criticism he absorbed this year over his handling of the city’s homeless crisis, Mayor Bill de Blasio recently trumpeted the early returns on his HOME-STAT street homeless outreach initiative.
According to de Blasio, since the launch of HOME-STAT in March 2016 through October, the new initiative has helped 690 street homeless individuals transition from the streets through connecting them to permanent housing or transitional housing options, such as safe havens; doubled the number of outreach staff members working to connect individuals to the resources they need to place them in housing, and has expanded outreach services into indoor spaces such as libraries and hospitals.
“HOME-STAT has already proven to be an essential lifeline for connecting individuals living on the street, and the hidden homeless who have historically evaded outreach, to the housing and services they need,” de Blasio said. “We will continue to generate innovative solutions and make strategic investments to improve our ability to identify and serve homeless New Yorkers.”
The mayor said that by increasing staff members and resources has meant that street homeless outreach workers can connect with more individuals living outside and offer expanded, personalized case management services:
- The City’s by-name list of street homeless or formerly street homeless clients is now at 2,976.
- The list includes 1,373 people with whom HOME-STAT outreach workers are still working to bring off the street, an increase of 512 since March.
- The remaining 1,603 were formerly street homeless and are now in either permanent or transitional housing or still receiving care to help them stay off of the street and in housing, de Blasio said.
Other “HOME-STAT accomplishments,” according to the administration, include:
- Increasing the number of street outreach workers from 191 to 387.
- Expanding case management services to now provide this help to anyone living on the street, rather than first requiring individuals to be homeless for a certain number of months to be eligible for these critical services.
- Bringing street homeless outreach indoors by forming partnerships with libraries and hospitals to connect with homeless individuals who have historically evaded street homeless outreach workers by using indoor public spaces as de facto shelters.
- Creating continuity for the homeless individuals on the streets and public accountability for the City agencies that serve them through a new citywide case-management and case-conferencing model.
- Increasing the tools outreach workers need to bring homeless individuals off the streets, including 284 Safe Havens already opened or in process for a new total of 813.
- Using the daily canvassing of key areas and extensive quarterly count to help make sure as many people on the street as possible are identified and offered services.
- Publishing daily and monthly dashboards online for the public, alongside other data quality and transparency measures.
“HOME-STAT recognizes that each individual living on the street has a story and faces unique challenges, and it uses targeted resources to help meet these individuals where they are. It takes an average of almost five months of intensive contact by outreach workers to bring street homeless individuals into transitional housing and more than a year for permanent housing,” said Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks.
