Dozens of homeless New Yorkers are moving into vacant apartments thanks to a new program

A few dozen New Yorkers are getting a chance to move more quickly from the streets and subways into permanent housing through a unique city program, bypassing some of the usual hurdles that lead to lengthy shelter stays.

Seven months into the “Street-to-Home” pilot program, the project has already connected nearly 60 once-homeless New Yorkers with private apartments that have on-site counseling and other services, according to Volunteers of America-Greater New York, the organization running the operation with the city.

While that’s just a fraction of the estimated 3,400 people identified during last year’s street homeless census count, the program’s early successes could provide a guidepost for the Adams administration as it wrangles to contain record-levels of homelessness in the five boroughs, Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Park said.

In an interview with Gothamist earlier this month, Park said the initiative should be expanded.

“I think we can safely say that this works and is providing a valuable pathway out of homelessness,” Park said. “It needs to be part of a toolbox.”

Instead of requiring homeless New Yorkers to compile the necessary paperwork to apply for housing while living on the streets or in shelters, the program cuts out the middleman by placing people in apartments where they can work on their rental assistance applications, said Mariel Cruceta, the head of supportive housing at Volunteers of America-Greater New York.

“This is targeting a group of people who would normally not enter the shelter system,” Cruceta said inside one of the organization’s apartment buildings in Brownsville earlier this month. “So this gives them the chance to come directly into supportive housing.”

So far, 58 formerly homeless residents have moved into four Volunteers of America buildings in Brooklyn and The Bronx, with 23 of them signing permanent leases.

The arrangement is drawing on the “Housing First” model, a direct approach to ending homelessness by offering people homes, though residents still have to spend some time in specialized shelters before moving in.

Volunteers of America plans to expand the program by taking in more tenants who were recently staying in public spaces, Cruceta said.

A challenge now is getting the city to fund that expansion while motivating more nonprofit providers to sign on. City Limits surveyed administrators at six supportive housing providers about the “housing first” approach in July of last year. Most said that moving people into supportive housing before they were officially eligible risked jeopardizing their funding sources.

The current Street-to-Home program residents connected with outreach workers at end-of-line subway stops, Cruceta said. They agreed to enter one of the city’s “welcome center” shelters before being offered an apartment at a Volunteers of America-Greater New York site.

The city launched the effort in September, as the homelessness crisis continued to worsen. The number of people staying in the Department of Homeless Services shelter system has reached record highs over the past six months, and shelter stays are getting longer, according to annual reports. At the same time, hundreds of supportive housing units sit vacant.

But linking people in need to available apartments is too often complicated by onerous administrative requirements, forcing would-be tenants to compile reams of income records, housing documents and health histories, Cruceta and her colleagues said. The documents are meant to ensure people qualify for supportive housing, and that providers, along with affordable housing investors, get paid.

The complicated process means homeless New Yorkers hoping to move into supportive housing have to complete their paperwork while living on the streets or in shelters, tasks that can take years.

But that’s where the pilot program differs, its supporters say.

Residents can move into an apartment and complete the necessary documentation from the comfort of a private room, with a door that locks, rather than meeting with a case manager inside a group shelter and hoping to land an interview with a provider that is willing to accept them. The city owns the buildings and is covering costs until the residents obtain some form of rental assistance. Once everything is approved, they can sign a lease to stay in the place permanently.

Joanne Riordan was one of the first to move in.

“It feels like home,” Riordan said. “I feel like I belong, and I like to belong.”

Riordan, 51, said she left a substance use treatment program in Far Rockaway and ended up staying on the A train last summer. She slept in subway cars for two weeks before an outreach worker offered her placement in a “welcome center.” She soon suffered a stroke and then got COVID, spending a couple months in hospitals before moving into the Brownsville supportive housing site, completing her paperwork and signing a lease.

Riordan said she now has a place to arrange her stuffed animals, with pride of place for a bear and elephant symbolizing her relationship with a longtime boyfriend who died a few years ago.

Another tenant, Angel Quiles, said he spent most of the last five years sleeping on the D and F trains. Quiles, 45, said he became homeless after his mother died and he could no longer stay in the apartment they shared in Westchester County.

He said he decided to take an outreach worker up on an offer of a bed in a shelter last October after years of hunger, cold and chronic fear became insurmountable.

“I was sleeping on the trains. I didn't have a place to go. I don't have much family. And one day I just decided it was too much,” he said. “I don't want to die so I decided I should get help.”

He moved into his fourth-floor apartment in Brownsville in January — not an immediate move, but faster than most who exit shelters for supportive housing.

Staff helped him secure IDs and food stamps. He’s working on getting his birth certificate, he said.

“It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done for myself,” he said.

The program is a new option for some street homeless New Yorkers, amid an ongoing crackdown by Mayor Eric Adams on people staying on sidewalks, parks and subways.

When Adams discussed the launch of the pilot last year, he said the city needed to study the results before expanding the program. The comment drew criticism from some homeless New Yorkers and their advocates, who pointed to the success of a streamlined move into housing elsewhere in the country, like Houston.

But dormitory-style supportive housing isn’t the best fit for everyone who needs an apartment, said Park. So far eight people exited the program, moving in with family or to other permanent housing — but the new program is a key strategy for moving people into homes faster, she added.

Kat Corbell, a member of the first citywide supportive housing tenant association, said the city should offer more homeless New Yorkers apartments without shelter stays and compel housing providers to take in tenants much more quickly.

“This pilot decreases some bureaucracy while still allowing a provider full discretion on who they will or won't accept, which is a central problem of New York City’s supportive housing system,” Corbell said. “We can do better."

Catherine Trapani, head of the organization Homeless Services United, which represents providers, hopes the program will show organizations and the city that they can speed-up moves without financial consequences.

“The neat thing about this project is the city has found a way to trust the process and to know that folks are going to be eligible for the housing,” she said.

People staying in public spaces almost certainly qualify for supportive housing based on their incomes, and special needs like mental illness, she added. Streamlining moves into housing will help chip away at the homelessness crisis.

“Being able to get them in the door and figure out the paperwork on the backend is really critical,” Trapani said. “If it’s working let’s keep going.”