Clergy and volunteers with the Partnership for the Homeless, which coordinates volunteer-run shelters across the city, are moving to block the RFP, which is scheduled to be released by mid-December. Their protest comes in the wake of 22 church shelter closings this year—seven in Brooklyn, 13 in Queens, and one each in Manhattan and the Bronx—representing a combined capacity of 150 beds. “If the Department of Homeless Services has its way, this network will be broken apart,” said Arnold Cohen, president of the Partnership for the Homeless, at the organization’s annual meeting last month. “And many of you and your congregations who have selflessly dedicated so much of your time and energy to this cause will be simply cast aside.”
The emergency shelter network, in which city-run drop-in centers connect the homeless to privately run shelters in churches and synagogues, grew out of a collaboration between Mayor Ed Koch and religious leaders in 1982. The shelters provide an alternative to the large municipal shelters at places like Ward’s Island and the Bedford-Atlantic Armory, which have been notorious hubs of crime and drug abuse. Volunteers at faith shelters cook, clean and provide fellowship, but are not permitted to proselytize their guests.
Under the RFP, providers of respite beds – straightforward emergency overnight beds outside the municipal shelter system – would have the option to contract with community or private organizations, including but not limited to religious institutions. This is an unwelcome change for faith-based shelters. “The relationship we created together did not come from a contract drafted by the city,” said Cohen. “It wasn’t a relationship that was created in answer to a city request for proposals.”
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George Nashak, deputy commissioner for policy at the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), says the agency's goal is to improve services at faith shelters and drop-in centers, which are by law subject to a renewed RFP process at the end of the current contract period. DHS has targeted for closing shelters that are located far from the drop-in centers and those open fewer than five nights a week, but also plans to fund up to 450 respite beds in the coming fiscal year. These would include so-called “faith beds” in churches and synagogues. Along with 500 planned slots in the Safe Haven program (transitional housing for the chronically homeless) and 150 stabilization beds (temporary rooms for people in the process of procuring permanent housing), DHS says it will have 1,100 beds available next year—a 66 percent increase over current capacity.
Some advocates for the homeless see a very different picture. On Monday the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless released a report criticizing the DHS proposals, saying they would make it harder for homeless people to access services. According to the analysis, the plan for fiscal 2010 actually reduces overnight capacity for street homeless beds by 51 percent. The Coalition’s tally takes into account proposed changes to the city’s nine drop-in centers, which serve as points of access to counseling and medical services, and serve as de facto shelters. (It also ignores proposed increases in Safe Haven beds.) DHS records show that last Thursday, Nov. 20, 570 people slept in drop-in centers and 319 in faith beds, out of a total of 6,478 single adults staying in city shelters that night. Under the DHS plan, no one will sleep at drop-in centers. Currently open 24/7, these centers would cut back to a daytime schedule, except in emergencies caused by extreme heat or cold.
