Blog

June 7, 2011

In the Loop: A Word From Our Director

Filed under: Affordable Housing, Homelessness — Tags: , , , , , , — admin @ 11:07 am

In April the New York City government suddenly terminated the Advantage program, which was designed by the Bloomberg administration to help residents of homeless shelters find and maintain an apartment. Overnight 13,000 families who depended on the Advantage subsidy to pay their rent were told the support would no longer be there. A lawsuit brought by the Legal Aid Society has ensured payments will continue while the case is pending, but there is no guarantee for how this case will turn out.

The Advantage program, begun in 2007, offered time limited subsidies based on the theory that families could eventually achieve financial independence, but the results were mixed and homeless advocates were very critical of the program’s design. Now those same advocates find themselves fighting for the Advantage program so that families depending on the program will not find themselves in the shelter system again. Although it seems to have received little media coverage, similar notices suddenly terminating rent subsidies were received by about 1,300 tenants remaining on the Housing Stability Plus program, another Bloomberg innovation that was largely replaced by Advantage.

There’s no question these programs were flawed, and that the problem of ending homelessness is a difficult and complicated one. The sudden failure of these two programs underscores the critical importance of homelessness prevention efforts, like those operated by Brooklyn Jubilee. In places like food pantries and soup kitchens we meet families living on the edge of economic disaster, and strategize with them on ways to achieve financial stability. A family with short-term income loss may be able to avoid eviction if we can help them understand how to get a small loan (repayable within a year) to pay their rent arrears . Programs like food stamps can bring in hundreds of dollars each month to feed hungry families, freeing up needed dollars to pay the rent.

Please pray for:

  • the thousands of formerly homeless families in NYC who face the prospect of returning to the shelter system
  • thousands of New Yorkers who remain homeless
  • the Department of Homeless Services, for wisdom and compassion in their attempts to serve the homeless population
  • Brooklyn Jubilee, and many others who strive to help families avoid homelessness altogether.

Sandhya Reju Boyd, Director

August 25, 2010

Starting a Medical Clinic in NY: How to Run an Obstacle Course Without Leaving Home

Filed under: Homelessness, Immigrants, health care — Tags: — admin @ 9:10 pm

A little over a year ago, the Brooklyn Jubilee board came to me and said, “We need to start a medical clinic.”  The reasons were simple and logical:

(1) There’s clearly a need for medical services in the community.  No, recent healthcare reform has not changed that, and I’ll blog on that topic more another day.

And (2) As an organization, our model has been to use the resources of our community to serve those in need in Brooklyn. One of those great resources is the medical professional in our churches and our larger network. We could take those professionals and, in the same way we’ve deployed lawyers and other volunteers to serve with their legal skills, we can send out these medical professionals to serve with their medical skills.  Makes sense to me. And of course, the entire endeavor demonstrates the love of Christ in a concrete way to a community in need.

Over the course of the last year, I’ve visited all of the Christian medical programs that I knew of in NYC, and met the directors of other programs in the state. I’ve gathered a lot of inspiration, and wisdom from these brothers and sisters.

So why don’t we have a clinic yet? One major issue in front of us is the regulatory hurdles in front of us.  In New York State, clinics must satisfy the same certification requirements that a major hospital must satisfy to open a free clinic. Think about that for a moment. While in other states, a group of well-meaning physicians can simply hang up a shingle (perhaps first going through the relatively easy and inexpensive process of forming a non-profit organization, perhaps not), in New York, you must have the capacity to survive a one to two-year process, known as an Article 28, with the necessary help of a consultant, at a cost of roughly $30-35,000 — with no guarantee that the state will approve your program.

So how are there other programs operating in the state? Many operate in a family practice model, which means there’s one brave doctor who operates the clinic as, essentially, a satellite office of his practice, giving free services at that site to anyone who comes. This avoids the problem of the so-called Article 28 process, but presents new challenges, like providing liability coverage for volunteers and getting tax exemption for donations to the clinic’s work.

We don’t yet have an answer to the problem. But God is providing advocates and friends to our cause to encourage us in our efforts. Many people would like to see us succeed, even if it’s not clear how we will. I’m not worried. I’m convinced that if God wants this medical ministry to happen, He will bring all the resources we need and more.

I’ll share more about what He’s done for us so far in future posts. In the mean time, please be praying about this endeavor and ask me about it the next time you see me!

~Sandhya

April 16, 2010

Brooklyn’s Homeless

Filed under: Affordable Housing, Client Stories, Homelessness, Park Slope — Tags: , , — admin @ 7:56 am

To the residents of Park Slope, being named the #1 neighborhood in the city may not have come as any big surprise.  What may surprise many is knowing that there are homeless people living in the Slope every day.

I met a couple of gentlemen recently who are active members of Old First Reformed Church, but have no stable home to sleep in each night. They’ve been waiting for Section 8 housing to come through for over  a year now, and their efforts to connect to city services (with lots of loving help from the Old First pastor Meeter and other members) have so far been unsuccessful.  I spoke with them, talked to them about some of the options they may not have considered, like public housing, so they put in a public housing application, but that could also be many years of waiting, even for two homeless gentlemen.

Part of the problem is the city policy of distinguishing between “street homeless” and people like these two fellows I met, who manage to keep off the streets each night but have no permanent place to stay. For example, one fellow in the Slope raises enough money each day panhandling so he can buy a bed night by night in a rooming house. It’s not his apartment. He can’t stay there during the day or keep things. He just has a place to sleep at night. If he’s not found on the street, city “outreach teams” won’t assist him. His only other option is to take himself to central intake in mid-town Manhattan, to enter the “Wheel” of the city shelter system.

Many homeless persons fear the shelter system (not unreasonably) for safety concerns. It’s also an exhausting process, requiring them to  shuttle around the city from central intake to a remote shelter placement and back, often in the wee hours of the morning.

This week, Reverend Meeter, Brian Steadman, members of Old First, and I met with city council members Brad Lander and Steve Levin to talk about our concerns for the needs of the homeless in general, and for the two homeless gentlemen attending Old First in particular. The council members were kind and empathetic, and promised to look into our concerns. Stay tuned…

~Sandhya