DHS halts new housing subsidy, leaving shelter-stayers stranded

(click to download the flyer) My name is Carlos Rosario. I’m 23 years old and I just recently became homeless going on two months ago. It’s my first time ever being homeless, and I’m in a city I’m not really familiar with. I was born in New York but raised and lived all my life in Jersey. I I’m expecting my first son with my girlfriend now who is homeless also. I’m currently sleeping in a drop in center in Manhattan called the Open Door. It’s not much to really talk about. My girl is staying in an all pregnant women’s shelter. Me and my girl lost our apartment in Jersey because of a fire. We lost everything. I have no paper work, no documents, nothing. Me and my girl came to New York with just the clothes on our backs, confused, worried and scared about what might happen to us and our newborn. Red Cross in New Jersey referred us to New York for help, ‘cause there’s not enough funds or shelters out there for us or anybody. Picture the Homeless had told me about the new rent subsidy programs that just came out, for homeless people in shelter who are on public assistance. My girl is currently on welfare, and I was trying to get on welfare also, but since I have no paperwork I can’t really do much. I’d been hearing about programs that help adults to get out of streets and into a shelter, and then you can get a rent subside, so I couldn’t wait, I was excited, ready to get back on track once all my paperwork was together. All of a sudden there’s a flyer going around in all single shelters, stating that single residents that entered shelter after August 1st aren’t eligible for the new rent subsidy! Great, just my luck. The Work Advantage Program is brand new, came out in April of 2007. So, four months into the program, now they want to take it all away? Why, I don’t know—and people who work in the shelter system don’t know why either. Picture the Homeless can’t even find out from the Department of Homeless Services. The fact is, they’re taking the program away from people they’ve already told are eligible. So to me it’s like false advertisement, you know, you get told one thing and then they take it away four months into the process. I know people who are being told by case workers to give up their jobs to join this program. Now what are people supposed to do? Now they’re homeless, living in a shelter and they have no sort of income, and they read some flyer in the main lobby stating that they are not eligible. People have the right to know why these flyers have been posted and who came up with the idea to stop giving them the help they need. It’s crazy. I don’t know much about these programs ‘cause I’m new to the system but if someone offers you something and you take it trusting and believing them, it’s wrong to just take it all away. The system screws with you in lots of ways. I was trying to get a bed in the Bronx, so I can be closer to my girl in case anything happens. There were beds available, but it’s not about what you need—it’s about what they want. They don’t care about what’s important to you. They just put us anywhere, so they can get paid. So what, right? I sleep on a chair all night, they don’t care. My girl can give birth any minute, they don’t care. They told me, “you don’t like it go sleep somewhere else.” You know—it’s wrong how they treat homeless people and how they play with their minds and make them do all this runaround for nothing. We got to put a stop to this seriously. It’s crazy it’s wrong and disrespectful. This madness must stop. A critical housing subsidy, suddenly withdrawn In mid-August, Picture the Homeless members reported that a new sign was posted in single adult shelters. The sign said simply that Advantage -- the brand new housing program launched in April to replace Housing Stability Plus -- would no longer be available for singles. Single adults entering shelter after August 1, the sign said, could not apply. The sign did not say where the order had come from, whether the program was permanently cancelled or just suspended, nor what alternatives were available for getting out of shelter and into real housing. While Advantage is apparently still available for families, single adult shelters are crammed with people who cannot afford housing without help. Many have been trying without success to negotiate housing using HSP vouchers. Some HSP voucher-holders were invited to switch to Advantage, including single adults. The suspension leaves them stuck with HSP, which prevents them from finding serious work but also reduces their subsidy each year. Advantage, intended to replace HSP, was supposed to allow recipients to work without losing their rent subsidy The Advantage program was launched in April 2007 to replace the failed Housing Stability Plus program which had prevented people from working, caused huge arrears for many tenants, and led to uncounted evictions and returns to shelter. Advantage had not even been fully implemented before the notices were posted -- many eligible people had not been told about the program at all, and many others had been told they could not sign up until August.