CM Restler on vacant supportive housing units
Councilmember Restler raises 465 vacant supportive housing units under DOHMH with no referral in process. Martin acknowledges the issue, noting a 5-6% vacancy rate across 13,300 units, and says some details will be addressed by the mental hygiene team later.
Thank you very much.
Congratulations on your appointment, Commissioner.
You know, it's when people are new to city government, one of the quickest ways to judge them is based on the people you hire and put around you.
So I was very pleased by your chief of staff appointment, somebody who I worked with for a long time at ACS.
Shout out to Jill.
Shout out to Jill Krause.
Okay, a few things from me.
I'll try to go fast because I'd like to cover a fair bit.
So according to the report we received earlier this year based on legislation we passed last year, there are currently 465 vacant
supportive housing units that are contracted by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
They are offline with no referral in process.
So that's nearly 500 units of housing offline, no referral in process, supportive housing, the most urgently needed kind of single type of housing in all of New York City.
Do you have a breakdown of why those units are vacant and do they need significant repairs?
And if, as the City Council's Progressive Caucus has advocated for with our Rentals Within Reach campaign, we were to provide additional funding to fix those units up, would you take it to help to connect more residents who need supportive housing to it?
Yeah, let me say, first of all, you're exactly right.
We see the same picture.
As you do, at the end of the day, sometimes home is the most important intervention for individuals.
We're proud to contract over 1,300.
13,300 units in total.
Our vacancy rate is somewhere in the 5% to 6% range.
There are some details here that I want to hold off until our mental hygiene team.
I'll come back to them this afternoon.
But I'll just say that it's a little complicated when we're trying to, you know,
move folks through the process, right?
There are natural things that happen.
People pass away or there are other complications that make it challenging to quickly get people in and out.
It's also important to make sure you get the right person in the right home.
Without a doubt, all of that's true.
There's a separate conversation we have to have about how we do a better job of getting somebody through the application process and into housing more quickly.
But the thing that we have focused on for both NYCHA and supportive housing under DOHMH and HRA's purviews on the supportive housing side is that we have 1,000 city units that we fund that are vacant and that have no referral in process.
And that, in my opinion, is offensive.
It's disgraceful.
We have thousands of people sleeping on the streets and in our subways who are suffering from chronic mental illness, who have no place to go.
The number one solution, the evidence-based, cost-effective solution is supportive housing.
And the fact that we have so many vacant units with no referral in process is...
I think mismanagement that we cannot defend or accept.
And so we want to put the resources in place to get those units fixed up and work together.
on it, so we'll follow up with the team this afternoon further on that.