“The city has not built enough of the housing that ends homelessness, especially supportive housing that combines permanent, affordable apartments with on-site services. Until that changes, more people will enter shelter than leave it.”
— Eric Rosenbaum, President & CEO, Project Renewal
I have spent much of my career running homeless shelters. Good ones. Shelters that connect people in crisis to medical care, counseling, and most importantly, housing. But shelter was designed as a safety net, not a housing system. In New York City, more than 85,000 people sleep in shelters each night. Two-thirds are families. More than 30,000 are children.
Shelter has become our default housing system for the poorest New Yorkers. As average lengths of stay rise in the single adult system, more of what we spend on shelter goes not to solving homelessness, but to keeping people in temporary beds while they wait for a permanent apartment.
We will not shelter our way out of this crisis. New York has expanded shelter capacity for decades, yet the census continues to rise. The city has not built enough of the housing that ends homelessness, especially supportive housing that combines permanent, affordable apartments with on-site services. Until that changes, more people will enter shelter than leave it.
