How Have Families with Children Fared in NYC Shelters this Year?

By Maribel Maria, Policy Associate at HFH and Caroline Iosso, Senior Policy Associate at HFH This month, New York City Mayor Adams’ Administration released the Mayor’s Management Report, an annual assessment of the City’s services. Like last year, we looked at how families experiencing homelessness fared over the course of the most recent fiscal year…

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Family Homelessness in 2022 in New York City: A Snapshot

By Maribel Maria, Policy Associate at HFH and Caroline Iosso, Senior Policy Associate at HFH This year, family homelessness in New York City rose steeply. As of mid-December, over 12,000 families with children were living in Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelters—4,000 more than at the start of the calendar year—and the Adams administration—and about…

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New NYC Cost of Living Measure Moves Beyond Other Iterations + Has Potential to Inform Interventions for Families Experiencing Homelessness

By Robyn Schwartz, Policy Advisor, Homes for the Homeless (HFH) Last month, New York City voters approved an amendment to the City Charter that would require the City government to create a True Cost of Living measurement. This measure would track how much it costs to meet essential needs in New York City—including housing, childcare,…

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Urgent Solutions Needed for NYC Families in Shelter

By Caroline Iosso, Senior Policy Associate, Homes for the Homeless (HFH) Recently, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration released the updated Mayor’s Management Report, or MMR, for fiscal year 2022 (July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2022). While the new Dynamic MMR is updated throughout the year with new data for certain indicators, the September publishing of…

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Adams’s Housing Our Neighbors Is a Great Start, But Families Experiencing Homelessness Need More

By Caroline Iosso, Senior Policy Associate, Homes for the Homeless (HFH) The much-anticipated plan to address New York City’s dual housing and homelessness crises was released by Mayor Adams last week. The plan, Housing Our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing and Homelessness, is full of impressive ideas and goals, though more could be done to…

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Five Facts NYC Candidates Need To Know about Family Homelessness: May 1, 2021 Edition

nyc

Overview The New York City mayoral election will be a decision on the proper localized response to the continued pandemic, similar in its gravity to the 2001 mayoral election that followed the dual wounds of 9/11 and the related economic downturn. Given the current financial crisis and increased unemployment, many New Yorkers will be approaching…

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From Shelter in Place to the Shelter Door

Ralph da Costa Nunez, Ph.D. On April 6, as the daily tally of new recorded cases of COVID-19—6,353—peaked in New York City, over 11,000 families with over 20,000 children were sheltering in place in the Department of Homeless Services’s family shelter system. The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic is negatively affecting all New Yorkers, but disproportionately harming…

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Over 80% of Students Experiencing Homelessness Are Not Considered Eligible for All Homeless Services

Student homelessness is at an all-time high, with over 1.5 million children nationwide experiencing homelessness over the course of the 2017-18 school year. That is the sobering verdict of a new report released by the National Center on Homeless Education (NCHE). This record-breaking total is an 11% increase over the previous school year and a…

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Seeking Stability: What Applying for Shelter Truly Means for New York City’s Homeless Families

By July 2019, the most recent month of available data, there were over 11,800 families with over 23,000 children sleeping in New York City shelters—a 49% increase since 2011. Every month, over 2,000 families apply for shelter from across New York City, yet only around 40% of them are deemed eligible for shelter. For many…

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