New York, NY —
As the city struggles to find space for families entering the shelter system, those waiting for permanent housing are also part of the problem. Families who are placed in the next level of shelter often linger there for nearly a year. That's a jump from 2 years ago when the average stay at this type of intermediate shelter was just over 8 months. WNYC's Cindy Rodriguez reports on one families search for an apartmentIn the heart of Chinatown nestled between two large housing projects sits an old brick building covered with scaffolding. There's a security guard stationed in front and families are beginning to sign in for the evening. The adults, mostly women are heading for their rooms and the kids are beginning to line the hallways waiting for activities to begin.
Jeanette Garcia lives at the shelter with her husband and three kids. Her family ended up there after the rent at her Bronx apartment where she lived for 10 years was raised to just over 8 hundred dollars. The family has been at this intermediate shelter since March .though they began their journey into the system back in December of last year. Although she comfortably strolls the halls greeting staff and residents her first night at the shelter was one she will never forget:
I cried that night because I say I can't believe this I come into the room it's dirty the cockroaches I had to leave the light own because I see the cockroaches all over my kids I never see so many cockroaches in my life
The next day Garcia spent 3 hours cleaning the room herself and then asked to be transferred. But workers apologized for the conditions and convinced her to stay. The family of five lives in 1 room with a small window that provides little light. She sleeps at the top of a bunkbed with her daughter...her two sons sleep below her and her husband in a twin bed nearby:
You feel like you're shut up in a place you don't see nothing. It's hard sometimes my husband gets depressed sometimes I get depressed sometimes there's nothing really to do and it's hard
Garcia had been taking accounting courses at Monroe College in the Bronx..but said it was too difficult to study in a room with four other people so she temporarily dropped out. Recently she's been occupying her time trying to find a permanent place to live. Caseworkers have helped her navigate government bureaucracy. In June she was granted approval for a voucher to help pay her rent under the federal program Section 8 but then she had to find a landlord who would accept it:
In section 8 they give you a list of brokers that you call and I did that in a week and I actually called 150 brokers I did it I count them cuz you have a list and you count them and from my other list in the newspaper and I count cuz I have to see that I really did something.
Garcia says out of the 150 brokers .only 4 had apartments to show. She says many times she filled out applications and waited for phone calls that never came . But most of the time she said three bedroom apartments were not available. The city will rely heavily on Section 8 this year to alleviate the housing crisis for homeless families. 6000 vouchers are to be used explicitly for homeless families that's more than double the amount alloted for homeless families last year. But Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Linda Gibbs acknowledges using all of them will be a challenge last year alone one thousand vouchers went unused and were returned to the government:
The process itself is one that involves certifying the apartments and certifying the clients and then approving the match between the landlord and the client. It's a bureacracy that has to be made to work more effectively to work for our clients and for landlords both.
But Homeless advocates believe the bureaucracy of the program is not the only problem. Anne Duggin is the policy analyst at Coalition for the Homeless. Even though more vouchers are being given to homeless families she says the overall number of vouchers for everyone has remained the same.
Homeless families are prioritized on the list so really what you're doing which has been described over and over again as robbing Peter to pay Paul. Other needy families and individuals are dropped down on the list.
But section 8 vouchers are working to get some families out of shelters more quickly Garcia is one of those who ultimately benefited from the program. After about 3 months of a diligent search she found an apartment she liked and a landlord who liked her:
I was shocked, I said I still don't believe this and I won't believe it until I have the keys and I do have the keys...because after you go through so much and you see that things are working out all of sudden like there's a door that they're opening for you cuz usually you go through so many and they close the doors on you but this one was so open I really didn't expect it.
Garcia will be living in a 3 bedroom apartment on the second floor of a private house in the Parkchester section of the Bronx. The rent is just over 12 hundred dollars. Garcia and her husband will pay 555 dollars, about a third of his monthly take home pay the Section 8 rent voucher will cover the rest. Prior to finding this place though Garcia had rejected two other apartments in the Bronx:
One was in a drug zone the building it didn't even have a lock. We went to the fourth floor where was the apartment and it looked dangerous because we were in the roof and somebody could like hide in the roof and you know. It was scary when I saw that I thought anybody could do a hold up to me really easy you know that's what came to my mind.
Garcia rejected another apartment because she said the rooms were too small and the building didn't look nice from the outside. It is this kind of choosiness city officials will be going to court today to try to curtail. While it's unclear whether Garcia would have been penalized for rejecting two apartments officials believe rejecting even one apartment that meets certain standards is not acceptable and they say selective clients only contribute to the problem of long stays at intermediate shelters.
For WNYC; I'm Cindy Rodriguez