QUESTION
What is the Department of Homeless Services doing to address the root causes of homelessness in specific areas and provide preventative services?
1:07:58
·
140 sec
The Department of Homeless Services is working with schools in the Bronx to provide education and prevention services to families at risk of homelessness.
- DHS staff are visiting schools in the Bronx to speak with families about preventing homelessness
- Schools are touring the PATH intake center to connect families with prevention resources in the community
- One school principal who was formerly homeless visited PATH to share their experience with families
- These efforts aim to help families access services upstream before needing shelter intake
Diana I. Ayala
1:07:58
Assuming, you know, I don't know what the rates are.
1:08:00
You get those numbers to us, but that that it is true that, you know, a large percentage of folks that are coming into path are from the Bronx.
1:08:11
Is DHS being proactive in terms of maybe working with the administration then to create some sort of, I don't know, public campaign to help offset the the driving forces behind its placement of families.
1:08:31
Like, are we adding tenant support clinics?
1:08:34
You know, do we have no your rights, posters everywhere?
1:08:38
What are what what if anything, right, has the h has been advocating for to help you know, because you have all of the data, you have all of the information, what are the driving for is right.
1:08:50
People are coming in for domestic violence.
1:08:52
People are coming in because, you know, maybe they're getting displaced.
1:08:55
People are coming in because they have no jobs, and they can't afford to pay rent, are those things that you are then tasked with bringing to the administration and saying, like, look, we're seeing that in this specific these specific ZIP codes, we have a higher need for workforce development.
1:09:10
We have a higher work you know, our need for tenant support services.
1:09:15
Like, this this this is where we would prioritize, right, the the bulk of our attention.
1:09:20
So, you know, I mean, I I I would think that's something that we would do.
1:09:24
We were really truly intentional about driving down the numbers.
Joslyn Carter
1:09:26
So I can tell you that our staff at Path have been making invoiced with the schools through some education with the the school staff.
1:09:35
We're having them come to make visits at paths, so they could talk with families around just kind of prevention of homelessness.
1:09:42
We're having them do some tours.
1:09:44
You know, we found just the other day one of the schools, and I wouldn't tell you which when came and the principal himself had been homeless and just to really talk about us being there and to go and talk with families about you know, there was a a family there and to talk about how do you push upstream, so not having to come to intake, but how do you connect to, you know, prevention in the in the community.
1:10:07
And so we're reaching out to schools to do that work and in in DHS.
1:10:10
So we're doing that with our connections.
1:10:12
In path, and that work is happening now through our intake site and the schools in the Bronx.
