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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Pascale Leone from the Supportive Housing Network of New York on supportive housing needs and process reforms
1:09:40
·
6 min
Pascale Leone, Executive Director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York, emphasizes the critical need for supportive housing (affordable housing with services) to combat rising homelessness.
She criticizes the current land use process as too slow (3-5 years before construction) and failing to account for the costs of inaction, advocating for faster approvals for supportive and affordable projects and better inclusion of marginalized voices.
Leone also highlights severe problems with city procurement, where late contract registrations and payments cripple nonprofit providers, recommending mandated agency timelines and interest penalties for late payments.
- NYC faces record homelessness, increasing the need for supportive housing.
- Supportive housing provides permanent homes and services for individuals with significant barriers like mental illness or substance use disorder.
- Current land use review is too slow (ULURP taking 1-2 years plus pre-certification delays) and site-focused.
- Leone recommends fast-tracking 100% affordable/supportive projects and improving agency coordination.
- Chronic delays in city contract registration and payments force nonprofits to rely on costly lines of credit, jeopardizing services.
Pascale Leone
1:09:40
Okay, thanks.
1:09:42
Good evening, Chairman Burry and members of the commission.
1:09:46
My name is Pascal Leone.
1:09:48
I'm the Executive Director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York.
1:09:51
We are a membership organization that represents over 200 nonprofits that develop, own, and provide services in support of housing statewide.
1:09:59
Thank you for the opportunity to testify about the important opportunities to revise New York City's charter.
1:10:05
It's also a point of privilege just hearing the journeys of your parents as a first generation Haitian American.
1:10:12
It really echoes that of my parents as well.
1:10:14
And I want to thank the previous panels for their testimony.
1:10:18
I know they left, but former councilmen for her bravery and her courage in trying to develop housing for the last and least among us.
1:10:26
So the need for supportive housing, which is permanent, affordable housing with on-site services, has never been greater.
1:10:33
According to HUD's recent point in time count, we've seen the highest number of unhoused individuals in more than a decade, with New York City experiencing an increase, 59% increase in just one year.
1:10:45
Supportive housing is evidence based model that interrupts the cycles of homelessness with individualized case management to address issues like serious mental illness, substance use disorder, chronic health conditions, and other things that serve as barriers to stability.
1:11:00
New supportive housing residents are beautiful, state of the art buildings that meet strict environmental and energy efficiency standards.
1:11:08
Supportive housing promotes community integration and provides at least, at least 40% of the units in any given residence as affordable housing for low income members of the community.
1:11:20
Oftentimes, it's more than that.
1:11:22
For nearly a decade, our community has been working toward the creation of new supportive housing through the city's New York City Fifteen Fifteen and the state's Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative.
1:11:31
In 2024 alone, there was over 1,000 supportive housing units opened across New York City in residents containing nearly nineteen thirty three low income affordable housing units for the community.
1:11:43
That brings the total number of supportive housing in New York City to just over 42,000.
1:11:48
20 thousand 20 five thousand of these units are in purpose built residents called congregate units congregate buildings, rather, and 17,000 are in apartments rented on the private market known as Scattered Site.
1:12:01
As it pertains to land use, the City of Yes streamlined zoning regulations and density bonus for supportive housing while also opening up more opportunities for affordable and supportive housing development in lower density areas.
1:12:13
However, to meet this moment, we need to collectively do more to ensure that we are creating the amount and type of housing that keeps communities stable and healthy and keeps individuals and families out of shelter, off the streets, and out of the subways.
1:12:27
Our city's land use policies are focused, unfortunately, on just site by site review.
1:12:31
This creates a framework where the impact of doing nothing is considered neutral.
1:12:35
However, we know that the impact of not developing supportive and affordable housing is dire.
1:12:40
Homelessness comes at a great cost to our city or to our communities from the financial impact of paying for costly shelters to the quality of life, public health, and other safety concerns.
1:12:51
A typical supportive housing residence can take three to five years for development.
1:12:55
This is before shovels even touch the ground.
1:12:58
ULERP itself takes one to two years.
1:13:00
ULERP precertification, which has no time limit, often has closed door conversations and lengthy review from an understaffed DCP, and it can stretch the process out even further, which, again, has no time limits.
1:13:14
As the Charter Revision Commission considers improvements for the city's land use processes, it's important to reach a better balance for citywide and neighborhood priorities.
1:13:23
While the current ULURP process is intended to function this way, with consultation for community boards and borough presidents followed by approval by city planning commission, city council and the mayor, there are not enough structures and incentives encouraging land use decisions that benefit our city as a whole.
1:13:39
One option explore fast tracking development proposals to meet the citywide objectives, such as 100% affordable housing, deeper affordability or meeting fair housing goals.
1:13:48
We must ensure that the voices of historically marginalized groups, people with disabilities experiencing homelessness, are included.
1:13:55
Too often at these community boards or other public meetings, discussions are dominated by few voices, which may may not be representative of the community.
1:14:04
Anyone affected by these projects that are absent from these hearings are excluded from consideration, including the people who are homeless, future residents, and even workers among them.
1:14:15
Additionally, the development is slowed by a lack of coordination between the city agencies.
1:14:19
A revised city charter could update the roles and responsibilities of various agencies, ensuring that HPD and DCP are not duplicating efforts on planning processes.
1:14:28
I'm going to jump to the procurement issues.
1:14:31
I'm just looking at the tone.
1:14:32
As it pertains to procurement, many of the network's members operate both supportive housing and homeless services and make their budgets out of patchwork of state and city government contracts.
1:14:45
And these nonprofits are the heart of the response to end and prevent homelessness.
1:14:50
And, you know, because, you know, the reliance of city funding, you know, we have serious concerns about the rates of late contract registration and payments.
1:14:57
We hear from our nonprofit members that they have millions of dollars of outstanding receivables on their books and fiscally unhealthy reliance on lines of credit due to late contract registration and delayed payments.
1:15:08
Outstanding receivables can lead to audit findings.
1:15:11
Nonprofit could spend tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on interest lines of credit, which is not reimbursable.
1:15:18
Just to jump to some of the recommendations, our timeline for contract package submitted to the comptroller, the city charter creates a time frame for the comptroller to register thirty days a contract.
1:15:28
And we believe that time frame should also be created for city agencies to deliver contract package to the Comptroller.
1:15:34
Interest on late payments.
1:15:36
There must be a mechanism to hold the city to a time frame for registration and payment.
1:15:40
We also suggest amending the charter so that nonprofits can actually collect interest when the city pays late.
1:15:47
We worked with, the network with HSC on a survey that found that 48% of respondents we, surveyed our members, our respective nonprofit members had to take out loans or lines of credit valued at $87,000,000 and almost $6,000,000 in interest payments.
1:16:03
I will stop there and just say that we my testimony has more recommendations, but we look forward to creating more transparent and efficient, process and contracting as well as land use and look forward to working with the commission to that end.
1:16:16
Thank you.