A program that gave young New Yorkers facing homelessness fast, one-time cash payments to spend on whatever they needed succeeded in keeping them out of the city’s shelter system.
Point Source Youth, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending youth homelessness, launched the innovative pilot nearly two years ago across several cities, including New York.
The program offered young adults between 16 and 27 years old an average of $3,700 to cover housing, food, cellphone bills or other expenses. Of the 98 young New Yorkers who participated, 97% remained in stable living situations six months after receiving the money, data shared with Gothamist shows.
Nationally, results from the program show 92% of participants avoided the shelter system six months after receiving support. The data builds on earlier successes that found most participants were stably housed three months after receiving payments.
”There's nothing reasonable that's off the table,” said Larry Cohen, executive director and cofounder of Point Source Youth.
“A young person needs moving costs, a young person needs furniture, a young person needs bedding, a young person needs to travel to stay with their grandma,” Cohen said.
The results of the program come as the Mamdani administration faces a yawning budget gap and is fighting the expansion of a rental assistance program that would, in part, help young homeless New Yorkers afford housing. The administration has said growing the voucher program is too costly.
Cohen said the program grants range from $645 to $9,900 and save the city the money it costs to shelter an individual for a year, at about $52,000.
Ky’ree Jamal Taylor, 23, received $3,700 from the program that he said helped him stay in his apartment with his wife.
“It helped pay off bills that we owed and the next three months of our rent,” he said. “ We were able to buy ourselves a mattress, a desk to work on, a coffee table.”
His wife, Alia Rosa Taylor, 25, said she was skeptical of the program at first.
“This is real? Like this is possible?” she said. She also received $3,700 to help with rent and their other bills.
“You’re also showing us that not everyone is out to get us, but they're out to help us as well,” she said.
Both have experienced homelessness in New York City before.
Chantella Mitchell, program director for the New York Community Trust, a prominent charitable foundation that funded advocacy efforts around the program, said what’s different about the cash payments is that they allow young people to decide what they need, after coming up with a budget with a local nonprofit partner.
“ Consistently, we see that people spend it on what they need and that they make the best decisions for their families,” she said.
Recipients used more than half of the money toward housing expenses, relocation costs or utility bills. Recipients also used the dollars on groceries, transportation, clothes, phone bills and health care.
Cohen said another 50 young New Yorkers will receive cash payments this summer through a partnership with Henry Street Settlement. Nationally, another 1,000 young people across the country will receive payments this summer.
Cohen said he’ll continue the program this year and hopes the city will invest $5 million to expand the program to all drop-in centers for homeless young people.
