Photo Courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
“When New Yorkers come together to do the right thing, we can make real progress,” said Mayor Adams.
By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams and the Partnership for New York City on Tuesday announced the launch of the Homeless Assistance Fund — a collective public-private initiative to provide services and mental health resources to New Yorkers experiencing homelessness. The Homeless Assistance Fund will partner with Breaking Ground, a homeless outreach and housing nonprofit, to accelerate getting unsheltered New Yorkers and individuals living with mental illness into the treatment programs and housing they need. This program will layer and strengthen the city’s existing homeless outreach initiatives, including Adams’ Subway Safety Plan, that has connected approximately 2,000 individuals to shelter since beginning in February.
The Homeless Assistance Fund is an expansion of Breaking Ground’s Connect to Care initiative piloted over the past two years with several private sector partners, including Macy’s, Vornado, Starbucks, and the MetLife Foundation. The Partnership’s interest in the project was in response to the concerns expressed by employees of its member companies in a Morning Consult survey. Employees identified care for the city’s mentally ill and unsheltered population as the top priority for charitable action by the business community.
In a demonstration of the business community’s commitment to helping city government address the challenges of homelessness and mental illness, 61 companies contributed to the launch of the Homeless Assistance Fund
Other donors are encouraged to join this effort, with the goal of expanding the program to areas across the city with high concentrations of unsheltered individuals.
The Homeless Assistance Fund will allow Breaking Ground to add additional outreach worker teams and serve areas not covered by city contracts, such as ATM vestibules, retail spaces, and plazas. The program will initially target areas around major transit hubs and dense office districts. Breaking Ground will offer training for people commuting to work in these districts to help them better understand populations facing homelessness and mental illness and equip employees with practical ways to help.
Preliminary data shows Connect to Care can help someone experiencing homelessness access a transitional housing placement up to three times faster due to more frequent engagement and access to locations that had not previously been canvassed. Connect to Care is a value-add program that layers over existing outreach with opportunities for more intensive trust building. Breaking Ground expects to begin phasing in deployment of expanded outreach teams in seven initial areas by early fall 2022.
“When New Yorkers come together to do the right thing, we can make real progress,” said Adams. “The Homeless Assistance Fund is a public-private partnership that will continue our work to tackle street homelessness by bringing together more than 60 of New York City’s businesses to offer support, resources, and a path to stability for people experiencing homelessness. In concert with the city’s unprecedented efforts and investments on the subways and in the streets, we can make sure that none of our brothers and sisters experiencing homelessness falls through the cracks. I’m grateful to the Partnership for New York City for spearheading this effort and our business partners for stepping up and coming together to help fight homelessness.”
