Policy & Issues Overview

Click here to read The Partnership’s response to Gov. Pataki’s proposed 2006-2007 budget in support of maintaining Benefits and Services to vulnerable New Yorkers.

On May 7, 2006, Heidi Siegfried, Supervising Attorney, testified before the New York City Council General Welfare Committe on the Department of Homeless Services' Work Advantage Program and other rental assistance strategies.

The Partnership for the Homeless would like to thank Chairperson Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council’s General Welfare Committee for convening an oversight hearing on the Department of Homeless Services' Work Advantage Program and other rental assistance strategies.

The Partnership has provided a broad range of services to homeless New Yorkers for more than 20 years, beginning in 1982 as a single shelter in a Manhattan church basement. The Partnership’s public/private collaborations, direct service programs, and advocacy efforts help families and individuals make the successful transition from New York City streets to permanent housing, skilled jobs and self-sufficiency.

The Family Resource Center at The Partnership for the Homeless provides services to formerly homeless families who have secured permanent housing in Brooklyn and to low-income families in East New York. We have 3 family advocates and a supervising social worker who assist our clients in maintaining housing stability. We help families find and connect to critical services in their new communities such as health care, childcare, mental health services, public schools, and food pantries. Most families also need immediate assistance to stabilize benefits, to understand workfare requirements, to address landlord-tenant issues and to address repair problems in their apartments.

The Partnership for the Homeless applauds the City for recognizing problems in the current rental assistance program, Housing Stability Plus, and attempting to remedy them through the new Advantage programs. We are glad to see that the proposed programs are not tied to Public Assistance. Commissioner Hess identified that the 65% of HSP recipients experienced disruption in their welfare cases. This rate of sanction or closure had been a key issue in maintaining stability. The first indication that a case is being closed due to earned income is often not a notice to the client, but the rent not being paid to the landlord by HRA, and a resulting eviction proceeding. Our family advocates spend a lot of time in fair hearings and securing HRA compliance with fair hearing decisions to keep cases open and the rent paid to avoid eviction.

The Partnership is particularly glad to see the Fixed Income Advantage Program which would give a special zero Section 8 priority to SSI/SSD clients. We will be happy to assist these families with their Section applications as well as the other needs they may have.

The Partnership is also pleased that the new plan raises apartment size standards for the Fixed Income and Child Advantage programs to those required under section 8. In December I represented a mother with two children who lived in a studio apartment. One of our family advocates has a mother with two sons and a daughter who was “tricked” into a one bedroom apartment that she thought would be two bedrooms. The mother sleeps in the living room, the two boys have the bedroom, and the girl has to stay with her aunt. We hope that the Fair Market Rents will enable our clients to find apartments that comport with the Section 8 apartment size standards.

The improved inspection standards for all Advantage Programs to the housing Quality Standards of Section 8 will also better the conditions our clients are living under. As has been extensively reported, HSP apartments are consistently in substandard. We have had numerous clients with lead paint violations, active water flows from ceilings with mold, plumbing problems, holes in the walls and ceilings, roaches and mice. We are excited that the City has taken this concern seriously. However, questions still remain about our clients with HSP leases in apartments that will never pass § 8 inspection standards who want to convert to the Advantage programs,

Finally, The Partnership is glad to see that the new rental levels reflect fair market rents. Despite the efforts of DHS and advocates to advise clients, landlords, and brokers that side deals are illegal, we continue to see them. We hope that this will reduce the number of “side deals” for additional rent.

Several concerns remain with the Work Advantage program. The program is still, unfortunately, a mismatch between earned income and rent. While the first two years of the program allow and even encourage participants to save, after the program ends, participants are forced to dip into that savings each month to cover their costs and may no longer be eligible for benefits due to their savings or there earnings.

The program rewards only those that are working at an income that is unavailable to too many of our clients. The jobs that our clients have been able to get will not allow them to pay the rent after the first year and probably not after the second -- and this is the case even for those with jobs well above the minimum wage. The people I have been representing in eviction proceedings have been mostly home health aides with variable hours at less than $8 an hour. One family advocate was only able to recall one client, a family of three, who had a job at a steady 35 hours per week. She works at an airport and that job paid $7.50 an hour. This Family Advocate has two other clients who work as substitute child care workers at $8.25 an hour with fluctuating hours. She has another client working at the Dress Barn at $10 an hour. That client’s hours used to be stable at 30-35 hours per week, but now they fluctuate also. Despite our clients desire for and an effort to obtain stable regular hours at decent wages, the current job market only offers them fluctuating hours at low wages.

Attached to this testimony are charts reflecting the federal, state, and city taxes and credits for these families. The family of three with the mother working 35 hours per week at $7.50 per hour will be $20 short of having enough income in her paycheck to be able to pay her rent of $1070. She can arrange to get her federal Earned Income Credit as an Advance in her paycheck, which will get her $100 to $130 more in monthly income. If this family had continued on Public Assistance, they would continue to be eligible for some public assistance with these earnings. But since their shelter obligation has only been $50 per month, their case will have closed and they would not get the earned income disregards at application which would make them eligible for Public Assistance to supplement her earnings. She would be eligible for the Food Stamp Program in the amount of $240 a month. She will be left with only $110 in cash to meet her other needs.

The substitute child care workers, at $8.25 an hour if they worked 20 hours per week, would not be able to pay their rent even after benefiting from all the tax credits available.

Our best case scenario, the mother working at the Dress Barn for $10 an hour, 35 hours per week, would have $330 left after paying more than 70% of her income in rent. She would also be eligible for $209 in food stamps.

The Work Advantage Program effectively faults people for not being able to make above the minimum wage. The program thus continues to be a trap for those in poverty, keeping them out of shelter for a time, but not creating real, sustainable economic prosperity. If we want New York City to remain a place for all working people, as well as those that cannot work, we need a program that meets people where they are at and has realistic expectations about both the cost of living and creating a living wage.

A more comprehensive program would be one in which there were educational opportunities, a proven way for people to increase their income, a program with job training to help people obtain better wage jobs. New York City might also need to accept that with the housing crisis, it might need to provide an ongoing subsidy to those that work 35 hours per week but still cannot make ends meet. This would be a true way to help people maintain a home of their own.

On January 9, 2006, The New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance withdrew proposed regulation that would have require people who have received five years of welfare benefits to go without income for 45 days

This decision was made in response to organizations and individuals who had objected to that amendment, including The Partnership for the Homeless in the letter below.

Ronald Speier
Office of Legal Affairs
Office of Temporary and
Disability Assistance
40 North Pearl Street
16th Floor
Albany, NY 12243

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the above referenced proposed amendment. The proposal would close the family assistance case of able-bodied individuals who have received 60 months of assistance funded by the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. Families would then be required to apply for State and local funded Safety Net Assistance and would be ineligible for that assistance for 45 days from their day of application.

The Partnership for the Homeless serves homeless families and operates a case management program for families who have recently come out of the shelter system to try to ensure that they do not return to that system at a cost of $36,000 per year. Because we believe this proposal is unconstitutional and will undermine our homeless prevention efforts, we strongly oppose this proposed change.

Article XVII, § 1 of the NYS Constitution provides that “The aid, care, and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state and by such of its subdivisions, and in such manner and by such means, as the legislature may from time to time determine.” The state’s affirmative duty, under Article XVII, to provide assistance to the needy was established in Tucker v. Toia. The Court found that the New York State Constitution “unequivocally prevents the legislature from simply refusing to aid those whom it has classified as needy.” The Tucker court not only held that needy applicants cannot be denied aid, but that eligiblity determinations cannot be based on criteria unrelated to need. The costs of administering a program are specifically not a basis for denying aid to people who have been found needy.

The 45 day disruption in benefits contemplated by the proposed regulation is unrelated to need and will increase families’ risk of homelessness.

The legislature has determined who is needy by setting the standard of need found in Social Services Law § 131-a. We know that the people reaching the end of their 60 month period on TANF funded assistance are needy because they have recertified, been called in for various appointments to reassess their needs for self-sufficiency interventions and exemptions, and because they have a duty to report any changes in their income. To deny assistance and care simply because of the length of time they have received benefits or because of a change in how New York State can fund their benefits is unrelated to need and does not comport with Article XVII.

The Regulatory Impact Statement asserts that the requirement of submission of a new application for safety net assistance, with an attendant 45 day waiting period, does not present an imposing barrier for those who continue to need assistance because emergency needs must be met during that period. In 2001, OTDA assumed that a 45 day wait would would cause an emergency because of the disruption of benefits. That assumption remains true today.

The requirement of several trips to the application processing office, and the need to make arrangements with employers and child care providers in conjunction with those trips, in order to meet the immediate needs of a pending eviction or utility shut-off that the state knows to be likely when assistance is discontinued, will result in some families losing their housing or basic services. Unless we expect the landlord or utility company will simply cover these losses when they don't receive their restricted payment during the 45 day waiting period, we know that the applicant will have these immediate needs. If OTDA is determined to adopt these regulations, it should at least make a provision to continue any restrictions during the "waiting period".

At the Partnership’s Family Resource Center in East New York case managers and an attorney assist clients who have left the NYC shelter system to establish themselves in their new neighborhood. Much of their work is related to maintaining income and housing by helping families understand program requirements, budget earned income, and develop good relationships with their landlords. Most of our FRC clients have left the shelter system with NYC’s shelter supplement program pursuant to 18 NYCRR § 352.3 (3) and HRA/DHS's approved plan called Housing Stability Plus. Thousands of families have entered into one year leases at an amount based on that supplement. Receipt of that shelter supplement is contingent upon the family having an open pa case. We have already seen people who get short-term jobs losing the supplement when they experience a brief rise in income above 185% of the standard of need, only to become eligible for assistance again, but without the supplement. The supplement is only available to people who have spent a certain amount of time in shelter. Thousands of people will be arbitrarily subject to reentering the NYC shelter system, at a cost of $36,000 a year, as a consequence of the imposition of the 45 day waiting period and the loss of the supplement.

In addition, as mentioned above, clients work very hard at developing good relationships with their landlords. So does the City which wants landlords to be willing to provide safe housing to families coming out of shelter by participating in programs that assist families to pay rent. In the past the City has even gone so far as to provide bonuses to landlords willing to participate in these programs. When landlords lose rental income due to arbitrary case closure they will be less willing to participate in the program in the future. If OTDA is determined to adopt these regulations, provision should be made to continue any shelter supplements.

The Regulatory Impact Statement asserts that the closing of the FA case will send a clear message that assistance is intended to be temporary and states "these able-bodied recipients will never escape poverty without achieving some level of employment." The latter statement is somewhat insulting to the majority of our clients who want to work outside the home and have found that they will not escape poverty even with employment. As OTDA reported in 2001, 29% of cases reaching the time limits had earnings.

Since 1997 DSS offices have been papered with clocks and misleading notices, such as those associated with the “Countdown to Zero” campaign, designed to scare our clients into thinking they are going to fall off a cliff after five years if they are unable to find enough work to reach 185% of the standard of need -- which is below poverty. An actual cliff is not necessary. A better approach is to treat clients with dignity and plan with the client a path to self-sufficiency that is accompanied by the supportive services required to achieve it.

The hardship that this regulation will impose upon families is not worth the $4.79 million to $9.58 million in projected savings to the state; savings that will be lost when the destabilization of families and children forces some to turn to other more expensive systems to repair the harm caused. The Partnership for the Homeless strongly opposes the proposed regulatory amendment and urges OTDA to withdraw it.

cc: Hon. Deborah Glick
       Hon. Ray Meier
       Mark Kissinger
       Comm. Robert Doar

Tucker v. Toia, 43 N.Y. 2d 1 (1977).

Id. at 9.

Lee v. Smith, 43 N.Y. 2d 453 (1977)

"The forty-five day wait is waived on the assumption that it would cause an emergency because of the disruption of benefits." 01-ADM-10, p. 8.

Testimony of The Partnership for the Homeless Before the Joint Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committees Hearing on the 2005-2006 Executive Budget-Human Services.
February 7, 2005

The Partnership for the Homeless Statement on Press Conference on Housing Stability Plus.
February 1, 2005

Testimony of The Partnership for the Homeless to Community Board 4 Hearing on the West Chelsea Rezoning.
January 6, 2005

Testimony of The Partnership for the Homeless to the New York State Assembly Social Service Committee Hearing on the Housing Stability Plus Program.
December 16, 2004

Testimony of The Partnership for the Homeless Before the Joint Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means Committees Hearing on the 2004-2005 Executive Budget – Human Services
February 11, 2004