Council Member Aviles questions DHS on housing specialist ratios
Aviles says case management and CityFEPs support is inadequate. Fellini says the housing specialist ratio is about 1 to 40 at sites that have them, but some sites lack housing specialists.
Councilman Raviles?
Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you so much.
So we've heard from a number of our constituents living in shelters that case management services, particularly getting support with securing housing via city FEPS vouchers, is really inadequate.
So one of our constituents came to our office crying because she has lost out on two apartments when she wasn't able to get support from her housing specialist.
What's the current ratio of the housing specialist to shelter residents?
And given that our goal with the shelter system is to get, hopefully, people out of shelters and into permanent dignified housing, what's the ideal ratio that we should have of housing specialists to residents?
Thank you for the question.
Our shelters are budgeted along a OMB-approved model budget.
So those model budgets set the ratios of staff that are budgeted for, with some exceptions if the provider wants to rearrange some of the lines or the titles.
Currently, for sites that do have housing specialists,
The ratio is about 1 to 40.
There are some sites that do not have housing specialists.
I would say, title aside, it's imperative that any case management staff be able to advocate on behalf of the client.
So they need to know the vouchering process.
They need to know all the options for a household.
They need to make sure the household is aware of what they might qualify for, what they do qualify for, and then take steps to help them get that voucher or housing strategy and then assist with finding housing.
As it relates to the CityFEP's process, I know our colleagues at HRA have done a lot to improve the processing time, and I know we continue to look at that.
And we get a lot of inquiries from shelter staff about why is it taking so long.
So, again, we're looking at the system on our side, the processing, when somebody does find housing.
But we look to support our shelter providers to make sure that the staff on the ground supporting clients are doing so effectively.