Chair Stevens on Staten Island lacking crisis services
Stevens raises that Staten Island has no RHY crisis shelter. Thorne explains a provider chose to convert their crisis shelter to a TIL program, now offering 41 TIL beds plus a 24/7 drop-in center, with 10 additional HYA beds being sited. Escamilla-Davies notes the TIL model actually benefits Staten Island youth by allowing longer stays locally.
Staten Island.
I know we don't talk about them a lot.
Your DYC website indicates that there are currently no RHY crisis services program located on Staten Island.
What does Staten Island lack?
Why do they lack a crisis center?
Has DYC explore establishing one in Staten Island?
Are there barriers preventing that from happening?
And like, I know like a lot of times they're like, it's not enough.
So like, what is the plan for young people who are
are there to access crisis services.
Okay.
As a fellow Staten Islander.
Oh, look at that.
So this must mean Mrs.
Neandidia Hart.
Yes, near and dear.
Very much so.
Staten Island did have a crisis shelter.
The provider decided that they no longer wanted to do crisis and they opt to turn it into a till.
So right now they have 41 till beds and they operate a 24 hour, seven day a week drop in center.
In addition to 10 beds that they are looking to locate for HY8.
Because they have 10 HYA currently, and we awarded them the 10 beds.
So now that's going to bring them up to 20 beds once they find an appropriate site.
But it was provider choice.
They did not want to have a crisis shelter.
I want to add to that.
Samantha has a long history of working with one-way and homeless youth in Staten Island.
She's a legend in doing that work out there.
The benefits to operating a TIL is that we wouldn't, look, we understand logistics.
It's hard to get from Staten Island to be referred to like Covenant House in Midtown.
So we have a 24-hour drop-in center in Staten Island operated by Project Hospitality.
You can refer, you can absolutely refer from the drop-in center to the TIL program.
So the...
impact of that is that where young people are being referred to, they actually have a longer potential length of stay.
And for young people who live in Staten Island and want to stay in Staten Island, that's important for them.
More significant for them because of the transportation challenges to getting to a different borough.
So it actually yielded benefits for young people in that they could go from the drop-in center to the TIL program and stay for a much longer length of time.
When young people, oh, I'll move on from that.