Newark Mayor Claims NYC Is Abandoning Homeless In New Jersey – Newark, NJ Patch
NEWARK, NJ — According to New York City officials, the Special One-Time Assistance (SOTA) program – which offers eligible residents a full year’s rent to move within or outside the city – is a crucial and effective tool for helping those left without shelter.
But according to the mayor of Newark, it’s also leaving waves of homeless people “abandoned” in New Jersey.
On Wednesday, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka released a statement that blasted NYC’s SOTA program, which he claimed is “burdening” Newark’s social services, as well as the very people it’s trying to help.
Baraka wrote:
“New York City’s SOTA program, which provides homeless shelter residents with a year of free apartment rent upfront, has serious defects and is causing a burden on the City of Newark and program participants. Numbers of these residents are coming to Newark. The individuals that come here under the SOTA program often land in uninhabitable and illegally converted apartments, which does nothing to break the homelessness cycle, but benefits negligent landlords, and makes an already vulnerable population susceptible to being homeless again. When the one year of rents expires, participants are abandoned without support from New York City and left to become dependent upon Newark social services.”
Baraka continued:
“We ask that New York City reevaluate and strengthen their SOTA Program by: inspecting all apartments in conjunction with Newark city inspectors, giving participants the option to return to New York City and receive shelter and services if they become homeless, ceasing 12-month payment upfront to landlords, moving to monthly payment, and providing ongoing support to clients by NYC social services for the duration of the program and beyond if necessary.”
‘A PROVEN SOLUTION TO A DECADES-OLD PROBLEM’
When asked to comment on Baraka’s allegations, spokespeople with the NYC Department of Homeless Services (DHS) provided Patch with the following information, dating back to the onset of the SOTA program:
- Out of the 3,539 households that utilized SOTA to move out of shelters, only 70 clients (1.9%) have returned to shelters
- More than one-third of the households utilizing SOTA moved to permanent apartments within New York City (see below chart)
“All units that clients may seek to move into through our rental assistance programs must pass our required reviews, which include a walk-through by trained staff, including DHS and provider staff, and our comprehensive Apartment Review Checklist (ARC),” NYC spokespeople said.
SOTA-eligible units in neighboring New Jersey counties – including those in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Passaic and Union – must pass the city’s ARC requirements. Housing providers are also required to take photos of the unit, and must verify authenticity of the address utilizing Google Street View, spokespeople said.
Steven Banks, NYC Department of Social Services commissioner, authored a resounding statement of support for the SOTA program in a Feb. 6 blog post:
“In our city, we’re tackling homelessness head on, leaving no stone unturned in our effort to provide New Yorkers with any and every option to get back on their feet, because we know this crisis can’t be addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach. That’s why we believe families living paycheck to paycheck shouldn’t be arbitrarily limited as they search for housing.
“Today, fully 70 percent of the New Yorkers experiencing homelessness and residing in DHS shelters are families and more than a third of these families with children we support are headed by an employed adult — the result of rising rents outpacing incomes coupled with policy failures by prior administrations across the City, State, and Federal levels. At the same time, today in New York City, households that can only afford housing for under $800 a month must find apartments in a market with a vacancy rate of just 1.15 percent in 2017 — down from the already-razor-thin 1.8 percent vacancy rate in 2014 — which is why we’re helping New Yorkers in need find the housing they can afford.
“Freedom of mobility and relocation is not reserved for people of means and families struggling to pay the rent should not have their right to travel curtailed or be confined within housing markets they can’t afford. Families experiencing homelessness here in our city have the right to seek housing where they can afford it and employment where they can find it. And we remain committed to using every tool at our disposal to help New Yorkers experiencing homelessness find stability in the ways that work for them, including through relocation and rehousing programs that date back decades. To that end, we’re proud to have helped more than 3,500 households, comprised of more than 9,100 New Yorkers identify and secure permanent homes, within the five boroughs and beyond, through one of these options, called Special One-Time Assistance — successfully providing the extra support needed to get back on the path to permanency, with only 70 households who have used this program returning to shelter. And families have never and will never be forced to move into an apartment that doesn’t work for them. Rather, we work closely with each family we serve to understand their unique needs so that we can empower any family that so chooses to avail themselves of opportunities that they feel meet their needs and would help them stabilize their lives.
“Recent news reports have uncovered a handful of cases in which our clients were victimized by bad actors who misled our staff and the families we serve. We are aggressively investigating these circumstances, going after the people involved to hold them accountable, and will assist the impacted families in any way that we can as they get back on their feet.
“But let’s be clear: our rental assistance and rehousing programs are working. Since 2014, more than 104,000 New Yorkers have been able to remain in or secure permanent homes, including those nearly 10,000 New Yorkers that utilized the SOTA program. That’s more New Yorkers in-need connected to housing than the entire population of Albany. And we know these placements are sustainable for the long-haul. Our data shows that return rates for adult families and families with children moving out of shelter with assistance remain at or below 1.5 percent. Our administration has achieved this milestone by aggressively increasing options and opportunity for families in need — a proven solution to a decades-old problem.
“While there is always more work to do to strengthen our programs, enhance our rehousing efforts, and ensure that the families we help move out of shelter remain stably housed, including to prevent bad-actor landlords from taking advantage of our programs or the people we serve, we will we not close doors of opportunity to families that seek and find them and we will not let our neighbors in need down.”
WHAT IS SOTA?
New York City officials provide more details about the SOTA program on the municipal website:
“The Special One-Time Assistance (SOTA) program provides one year’s full rent up-front for eligible Department of Homeless Services (DHS) clients to move within or outside New York City. SOTA is a rental assistance incentive for DHS clients who receive enough income to cover future rent payments that are not more than 50% of their household income.”
DHS clients eligible for SOTA must be families with children that have been in shelter at least 90 days, or single adults and adult families that entered shelter on or before March 31, 2018.
To qualify for the program, clients:
- Must provide proof of income
- Cannot use SOTA to rent a room rather than an apartment
- Who are moving within New York City must NOT be eligible for any federal, state, or city rental subsidy
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