PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tierra Labrada, Policy Director of Supportive Housing Network of New York
1:26:48
ยท
4 min
Tierra Labrada, Policy Director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York, testified about issues with HASA's supportive housing program, focusing on high vacancy rates and challenges in filling units. She highlighted the disconnect between vacant supportive housing units and people in emergency housing, proposing several solutions to address these issues.
- Labrada reported that some providers are receiving only 45% of expected referrals from HASA, leading to significant vacancies and loss of funding.
- She suggested allowing providers to transfer HASA units to DOHMH to serve a broader population while still prioritizing HASA clients.
- Labrada emphasized the need for data transparency in HASA's operations, noting that information on many units is not publicly available.
Tierra Labrada
1:26:48
Hi.
1:26:49
My name is Tiara Labrad.
1:26:50
I'm the policy director for the Supportive Housing Network of New York.
1:26:53
I agree with everything that everyone up here just said.
1:26:56
You know, the HASA has been a close collaborator with the network for a long time.
1:27:01
However, oversight is wholly inadequate, and it's made it very difficult to make systemic change.
1:27:05
Now I'm gonna get to my testimony.
1:27:09
I wanna talk today about the vacancies and supportive housing units.
1:27:12
HASA mentioned that they have about 400 vacancies in their supportive housing units.
1:27:16
And I apologize.
1:27:16
I wasn't here to hear how long they said that these vacancies have been persistent, but from our providers, they have been vacant for a very long time.
1:27:24
HASA is supposed to send three referrals per vacant unit, and that is just simply not happening.
1:27:31
One of our providers reported that in December of twenty twenty four, they only received 45% of the referrals that they were supposed to receive.
1:27:38
They had 22 vacancies and were only able to move two people in.
1:27:42
Part of this is due to the way that we have set up our system for their emergency housing.
1:27:46
So as you probably heard here, HASA transitional housing program does not require clients to pay rent and does not impose any time limits.
1:27:53
This is very admirable.
1:27:55
Right?
1:27:56
But what happens is that then we have a system that disincentivizes people from moving from emergency and transitional housing into permanent supportive housing.
1:28:03
So the city is paying for this double.
1:28:07
I'm going a little bit off script here.
1:28:08
Let me go to my script.
1:28:09
It's not a housing.
1:28:10
It's a fiscal and moral failure.
1:28:12
Hundreds of units are sitting vacant while providers are losing revenue.
1:28:15
So this one provider that I just mentioned, 45%, 45% of referrals, they were expecting 22 vacancies, only moving two people in.
1:28:23
They actually lost a federal grant most recently, in this year's NOFO because of their occupancy rate, which is about 80% compared to 95% occupancy with their DOHMH contracts.
1:28:33
This means that folks are folks who could gain access to these units are not actually gaining access to these units.
1:28:41
I do have a couple of proposed solutions here, which is to allow HASA contracted providers to transfer their units to DOHMH units.
1:28:50
HASA has consistently told us and providers that they do not have eligible clients in their emergency housing programs that want to move.
1:28:58
That's why they're not sending referrals, and folks are not moving into these supportive housing units.
1:29:03
We can transfer these units to DOHMH units so that they can serve a broader population while also continuing to prioritize HASA clients.
1:29:13
Some of these units are in SRO units, which we've beat the drum for a very long time about the challenges with filling SRO units, especially for people who are exiting the homeless service system, DHS shelters, HASA transitional housing, moving from one SRO where you don't have to pay rent or you've been stable there for a long time into another SRO where you're required to pay 30% of your limited income on rent.
1:29:36
We would really, appreciate the opportunity to consider investing in capital investments to convert these SROs into studio apartments.
1:29:45
Another consideration that we've talked to HASA about is, incentivizing folks to move from transition to move from, HASA SROs to permanent supportive housing SROs by capping their tenant contribution at $50, which is something that DHS has done with CityFAHPS if you're moving into an SRO unit from a DHS shelter, because folks don't wanna pay 30% of their limited income, to move into an SRO unit.
1:30:08
I also do just wanna acknowledge the data transparency issue with HASA.
1:30:13
5,500 units, 1,400 of which are in caps, the coordinated assessment and placement system.
1:30:19
This system, has a report, the local law three report, which this body actually passed a couple of years ago.
1:30:26
It's, submitted every year.
1:30:29
But 40 1,400 of those units are actually in caps, so they get reported on.
1:30:32
So we can see the vacancy and referrals that happen for these units.
1:30:37
But for 4,500 or so units, that are in HASA web, it's like a black box.
1:30:41
We have no data.
1:30:42
We have no access to know how many of those units are actually vacant, how many of those referrals are being made, the length of time, those units are vacant.
1:30:51
We talked a little bit about sealed units.
1:30:53
There's there's no data transparency for HASA, and it's really difficult to get, them to submit data.
1:31:00
So I know I'm at time.
1:31:01
I have longer written testimony that outlines all of this here, and I'm happy to answer any questions.