New York, NY – In response to the release of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ housing and homeless blueprint today, the Family Homelessness Coalition issued the following statement:

“The Mayor’s housing and homelessness blueprint takes meaningful steps forward to safeguard families with children who are experiencing homelessness or on the brink of losing their homes. We look forward to building on this blueprint to go further to put an end to family homelessness. We commend the Mayor for creating a new system to track and measure homelessness across all five shelter systems, which will increase accountability and capture the true scope of the homelessness crisis. We also applaud the efforts to expand access to city-funded rental vouchers and homeless set-asides for all shelter residents and to streamline the lease-up
process of affordable housing at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

We applaud the decision to explore opportunities to make it easier for families to qualify for city-funded supportive housing and to remove the burdensome four-month shelter stay requirement to access CityFHEPS. We also applaud efforts to expand access to health and mental health care while in shelter and to expand access to on-site services in affordable housing for those who do not qualify for supportive housing. Finally, we are grateful for the additional funding to expand the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (EDGBV) 2020 microgrant pilot program, which was proven to help survivors and their families attain and maintain housing stability, while promoting well-being and safety.

Yet, at a time when rents continue to climb and countless families are one missed paycheck away from a devastating financial crisis, we are disappointed the blueprint’s housing development plans are impeded by an insufficiently robust appropriation for housing development in the adopted FY’23 New York City Budget.

We look forward to continuing to collaborate with the Mayor, his administration and the New York City Council to ensure that efforts to combat homelessness are met with the necessary resources to match. We remain hopeful that this administration and Council Members will continue to listen to our vision and will join our fight to not only improve child and family well-being but importantly put an end to family homelessness.”

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ABOUT
The Family Homelessness Coalition (FHC) is composed of 18 organizations representing service and housing providers and children’s advocacy organizations. FHC is united by the goal of launching a coordinated, collaborative, multi-agency effort focused on preventing family homelessness, improving the well-being of children and families in shelters, and supporting the long-term stability of families with children who leave shelters.