Hochul Announces $38.2M To Address Homelessness Statewide

LONG iSLAND, NY — Gov. Kathy Hochul is taking steps to curb the escalating issue of street homelessness across New York State.

On Tuesday, Hochul announced $38.2 million in state funding to create 8 "Safe Options Support" teams, aimed at providing intensive outreach, engagement and care coordination services to people who are experiencing homelessness in areas of the state outside of New York City.

Funded through the State Office of Mental Health, the teams will be modeled after ones now providing assistance to unsheltered individuals staying on the streets and within the subway system in New York City and will be deployed in areas of the state with high rates of street homelessness, Hochul said.

"Far too many New Yorkers are living unhoused in our communities, lacking the resources and support they need to get back on their feet," Hochul said. "These outreach professionals will help provide immediate assistance and develop a positive relationship with individuals living on the street — helping them access the services they can rely on to start on a path toward stability."

The Safe Options Support teams are slated to include behavioral health professionals that specialize in connecting New Yorkers experiencing homelessness to critical services and shelter, Hochul said.

Those professionals include licensed clinicians, care managers and peer specialists who will work closely with local government, community partners, hospitals, law enforcement and others.

Explaining the rollout of funding, Hochul said the State Office of Mental Health is providing up to $4.7 million over 5 years to establish each of the 8 teams. Each of the teams will be located outside of New York City in an area of the state with the most immediate and acute need, according to the request for proposals released last week.

Similar teams were deployed in New York City last year to provide support and assistance to unsheltered individuals staying on the streets and within the subway system. To date, 10 teams have had more than 4,500 outreach encounters with people experiencing homelessness, many of whom were living with mental illness, with nearly 200 placed in temporary shelters and more than 600 having agreed to receive ongoing assistance from the teams.

Safe Options Support teams work to help the homeless build life skills and strengthen their support networks so that their care can successfully be transferred to community-based health care providers. The teams also accept referrals from hospitals, social services departments, law enforcement, community providers and others that work in areas where they interact with unhoused individuals, Hochul said.

The teams use "Critical Time Intervention", an evidence-based practice that helps connect vulnerable individuals to housing and services during difficult times of transition in their lives, Hochul said.

To that end, the teams quickly "establish contact and conduct assertive and persistent outreach to establish trust and foster engagement. The teams will provide coordinated care transition activities and support, starting from the time of referral through transition to community housing, treatment and supports," Hochul said.

Referrals are reviewed and coordinated in close collaboration with the state Office of Addiction Services and Supports, the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, local departments of social services and other key stakeholders to ensure rapid connection and prevent any duplication of services. Services will be provided for up to 12 months, pre- and post-housing placement, with an intensive initial outreach and engagement period that includes multiple visits per week, each for several hours, Hochul said.

In addition to those Safe Options Support teams and the ones now operating in New York City, Hochul also called for adding another 8 teams, with 5 in New York City and 3 in the rest of the state, as part of her comprehensive plan to overhaul New York's mental health care system and drastically reduce the number of individuals with unmet mental health needs.

During her 2023 State of the State, Hochul said that the $1 billion multi-year investment is aimed at "dramatically expanding" outpatient and inpatient services, establishing new school based mental health clinics for students, creating 3,500 additional units of housing for people with mental illness and expanding insurance coverage for mental health services.

The news comes as the specter of homelessness continues to cast a long shadow on Long Island.

While the East End has experienced a housing boom, with waterfront homes selling for millions and the area a blissful destination for many looking to savor idyllic vistas and wineries, windswept beaches and glorious sunsets — a dark truth exists that few even realize: Hundreds of students in East End school districts are experiencing homelessness.

In the first of a series on homelessness on the East End, Patch took a look at the number of homeless students heading to school every morning in some of the toniest zip codes in the nation.
Homelessness on the East End — known as being the playground for the wealthy — in some cases surpassed other Long Island districts by a wide margin. East End districts with the highest share of homeless students reported figures double, triple or higher than some Suffolk County districts that reflect far lower percentages.

School districts nationwide, including New York, vastly undercount the number of students experiencing homelessness, a critical first step in receiving assistance, according to “Unhoused and Undercounted,” an investigation from the Center for Public Integrity.

Nationwide, the undercounts cut about 300,000 students out of benefits that could help their families, including free transportation to school, according to the investigation by journalists Amy DiPierro and Corey Mitchell of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization.

The groundbreaking analysis, based on the 2018-19 school year before pandemic interruptions in data collection, is the first-ever attempt to quantify how dramatically school districts undercount the number of students experiencing homelessness.

Losing a home can be a critical turning point in a student’s life and federal law requires school districts to help them. About 2,400 school districts nationwide — whether in regions with severe hardship, cities or prosperous suburbs — reported having no students without a regular place to sleep, “despite levels of financial need that make those figures improbable,” DiPierro and Mitchell wrote.

“And many more districts are likely undercounting the number of homeless students they do identify,” they continued. “In nearly half of states, tallies of student homelessness bear no relationship with poverty, a sign of just how inconsistent the identification of kids with unstable housing can be.”

East End school districts worked with Patch to provide updated data on the number of homeless students currently enrolled — and the numbers reflected a reality that exists in stark contrast to the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by many who live in million-dollar mansions and enjoy dazzling ocean or Sound views.

To read the full story on student homelessness, click here.

Meanwhile, Dan O'Shea, executive director of Maureen's Haven, a homeless program on the East End, said he sees a different demographic comprised largely of adults, not children.

However, as a whole, O'Shea said he has seen an uptick in homelessness that he attributes to a lack of housing sparked by a spike in real estate prices— with many families having had to find alternative options or move from the area because their rentals were sold.

Those families he said, might be living in local motels, their cars, or RVs, parked at box store lots or highway rest stops.

"One factor is certainly the overall cost of everything," O'Shea said. "Prices have been going up and families have had to make very difficult decisions based on housing. You can't find a house to rent on the East End now. Who's got $3,000 or $4,000 to rent a house?"

Affordable options that once existed have vanished post-pandemic, he said.

O'Shea said he did help one family that had two kids in high school who moved to the East End but ultimately went back to Virginia.

The psychological impact on the teens was noticeable, he said, with young people experiencing anxiety and depression.

"There's a wariness in being new to a school district and not knowing if they're going to be staying. Being in transition is extremely difficult and traumatic for kids of that age."

Simple things, such as a child not having a home to invite kids over for pizza, or not having new toys under the tree like their friends, leave children impacted, he said.

Sister Margaret Smyth of the North Fork Spanish Apostolate, a Riverhead organization that helps those in need — Sister Margaret died just three days after her last interview with Patch — said she had. seen a rise in homeless families in recent months as they've lost their rented rooms and apartments due to the fact that many rental properties have been sold and the stock of available rentals has shrunk dramatically. Many, she said, are now without physical addresses.

Sister Margaret and O'Shea said there are many areas in the woods and in encampments on the East End and across Long Island where the adult homeless are currently living.

Many do not want to move out of the area, she and O'Shea said, because they work in their hometowns, have children enrolled in schools there, and have deep and longtime ties to their communities.

The demographics of those suddenly homeless reflect "everyone across the board," Sister Margaret said.