Mayor de Blasio Announces $2.6 Billion Investment to Create 15,000 New Units of Supportive Housing

Number of Supporters for 35,000 Units Keeps Growing  

26 NYS Senators Urge Governor to Support 35,000 Supportive Housing Units Statewide

Long Island Legislators & Local Community Leaders Call for 35,000 Supportive Housing Units Statewide

Rally Supporting NYC Council Resolution for 30,000 Unit NY/NY 4

City Council rally/hearing supporting 30,000 NY/NY Agreement for NYC.

City Council Member Carlos Menchaca and Campaign 4 NY/NY Housing rallyers

One day after Mayor de Blasio's historic commitment to creating 15,000 units of supportive housing in New York City, the City Council held a hearing on a resolution calling on the City and State to negotiate a new NY/NY Agreement splitting the cost of creating 30,000 units.  A press conference and  rally that both celebrated the Mayor's unprecedented commitment and encouraged the Governor to make a similar commitment preceded the hearing.

 

The rally/press conference was emceed by Network Executive Director Laura Mascuch and featured brief remarks by seven council members -- General Welfare Chair Stephen Levin, Brad Lander, Housing and Building Chair Jumaane Williams, Carlos Menchaca, Donovan Richards, Antonio Reynoso, and Margaret Chin - all of whom lauded the Mayor's commitment of $2.6 billion for supportive housing, called on the Governor to come to the table and spoke of the transformative power of supportive housing.

 

   

DePaul Rochester recently opened Rochester View Apartments, a unique affordable and supportive housing residence that became New York State's first apartment community to offer enhanced supports that accommodate tenants who may be deaf, hard of hearing and those using American Sign Language. The apartment complex features 60 apartments providing homes to a mix of hearing challenged individuals many of whom are struggling with mental illness.

On December 1, Unique People Services broke ground in the Bronx for a new affordable and supportive housing project, Lynn's Place, which will provide homes for a mix of formerly homeless individuals and low income families. Already five years in the making, the project is scheduled to open in the winter of 2017. The building will feature 69 units of housing, with 42 units of supportive housing for individuals with a mental illness and 27 units of affordable housing for individuals and families making less than 60% AMI. The development will also include community space on the ground floor, a sunken courtyard, a landscaped back yard and a green roof on the seventh floor.

After nearly twenty years living on the street, Cadillac Man (aka Thomas Wagner), now 65,  moved into a permanent home in Astoria, Queens, the first week of December, after a  long saga dependent upon a series of serendipitous moments.

For the Network, it started in 2008 at a workshop we sponsored on working with street homeless people. As a means of illustrating how difficult it was to get chronically street homeless people to come indoors, the presenter at the workshop had brought a clip from that morning's New York Times about a person named The Cadillac Man who had lived on the streets for decades. The Times wrote about Cadillac because he had recently published a book - " Land of Lost Souls" -- that he had written at the urging of former Esquire Literary Editor Will Blythe, who lived in Queens and had befriended Cadillac over a period of years. The person running the workshop, Network staffer Cynthia Stuart, was shocked: she knew Will fairly well, having worked with him years before at Esquire.