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Alliance Alert: A warning from our friends Pascale Leone of the Supportive Housing Network of NY and Sebrina Barrett of the Association for Community Living. Stay tuned for more news and possible actions going forward.

N.Y. May Have To Step Up On Supportive Housing, Proponents Warn
Supportive housing is a specialized kind of rental housing run by nonprofit organizations that provide tenants with services directly in their building.
By Dan Clark, Capitol Bureau   Albany Times Union   November 30, 2024

ALBANY — Supportive housing is a lifeline for thousands of ����������ers who benefit from having staff and services onsite where they live, but advocates are concerned it could be on the chopping block under the incoming Trump administration. The demise of the program would require the state to commit more funding for supportive housing units that already exist or face the risk of losing them altogether.

“We don’t know exactly what to expect, but based on our experience from the first Trump administration we don’t expect it to be great,” said Pascale Leone, executive director of the Supportive Housing Network of ����������.

Supportive housing is a specialized kind of rental housing run by nonprofit organizations that provide tenants with services directly in their building. More than 50,000 units exist statewide. Those services vary by facility but can include mental health care, drug abuse counseling and help with employment. The goal for many tenants is to help them transition to permanent housing while others may stay for years.

That doesn’t mean it’s free for those who use it but it’s heavily subsidized to make it more affordable for tenants. Rent is capped at a third of a tenant’s income.

Those subsidies are supported through grants and financial assistance offered by the state and federal governments. Municipalities and donors can also help support those facilities but Leone said it hasn’t been enough to sustain that stock.

“It’s not hyperbole or conjecture,” Leone said. “Buildings and units are closing down.”

That’s why they’re concerned that past policies attempted by President-elect Donald J. Trump could worsen that trend instead of reversing it.

Trump attempted to cut billions of dollars in his first term from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which administers grants and financial assistance used to help fund supportive housing.

Chief among them is Section 8, more formally known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program, which is commonly used by tenants in supportive housing. The program pays a large share of the rent for low-income people who use it. The payments are made directly to the property owner or nonprofit, rather than to the tenant, who’s expected to pay whatever’s not covered by the Section 8 voucher.

Trump had proposed cuts to Section 8 during his first term that would have eliminated that benefit for 200,000 people, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. He also wanted to require tenants to pay a larger share of the rent.

Those cuts were never realized before Trump left office but advocates fear they could be revived, and expanded, in his second term.

“There’s uncertainty. There’s anxiety,” said Sebrina Barrett, executive director of the Association of Community Living. “We’re just going to be here and continue to advocate for what we need.”

Those concerns are shared by key lawmakers in the state Legislature, including Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Democrat from Manhattan who chairs the Housing Committee.

Cuts could expand beyond Section 8 to items like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, she said, which is a federal incentive for developers to set aside a certain share of units in a building for low-income tenants. “Almost all the new supportive housing programs rely on this,” Rosenthal said. “That could really hurt the stability of people living in supportive housing, as well as the financial viability of support housing programs.”

State Senate Housing Chair Brian Kavanagh, D-Manhattan, agrees that cuts to federal housing programs would impact ���������� but said he’s optimistic Congress would resist those efforts. Section 8 has more supporters than opponents on Capitol Hill, he said. “I think there are good reasons to think that particular funding stream may be safer, perhaps than some others. Section 8 has had very long-standing bipartisan support,” Kavanagh said. “If you were to cut Section 8, you would disadvantage a lot of people, including property owners.”

That doesn’t mean he isn’t prepared for the possibility of cuts to the program. Kavanagh carries a bill with Rosenthal that would create a state version of Section 8 called the Housing Access Voucher Program.

It has rare support from both tenant advocates and property developers, but Gov. Kathy Hochul has been opposed to it because of its anticipated cost, which lawmakers said this year would start at $250 million.

“These things do cost a great deal of money, which is why we do depend on federal resources,” Kavanagh said.

Hochul’s position could change moving forward depending on how federal support shakes out, Rosenthal said. Hochul has only been governor during the Biden administration, which has been generous to ����������. “I think maybe the added pressure of the Trump administration will persuade her,” Rosenthal said. “If we see the end of those federal programs, which everyone will have to fight against, we do need a statewide program.”

Advocates predict Hochul wouldn’t need much convincing to change her position in that scenario. Since taking office, she’s negotiated state funding for hundreds of new supportive housing units.

“This particular governor, as compared to her predecessors, has demonstrated a real commitment to supportive housing, both in preservation and new development,” Leone said.

There’s also a bill called the Supportive Housing Modernization Act that would transition 9,000 supportive housing units from a decades-old state program to one with more funding created in the last decade. That would grow state assistance for those units from about $2,700 per year to up to $25,000, which would also be used to pay for the onsite services provided to tenants.

“We have to fix that supportive housing but, on top of that, we need more supportive housing,” Rosenthal said. “We have to look out for the welfare of the individuals out on the street.” That would also help alleviate concerns from residents about the number of people in ���������� City without homes, but without anywhere else to go, she said.

Those proposals are expected to be on the table again next year. The legislative session is scheduled to begin in January.