Senate Bill S849A

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S849A

 TITLE OF BILL :
An act to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in
relation to requiring the department of homeless services to maintain
an intake center in Manhattan


 PURPOSE :
Requires the Department of Homeless Services to maintain a facility
24/7 for processing applications for shelter.

§ 2. This act shall take effect on the sixtieth day after it shall
have become law.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

§21-316 is added to amend Section 1, of the administrative code of the
city of New York to read as follows: Intake for single men. The
department shall maintain a facility in Manhattan, south of
ninety-sixth street and as proximate as possible to major
transportation centers, which shall be open twenty-four hours a day,
seven days a week, to accept and process request for shelter from
single homeless men. The facility shall have shelter beds on site and
shall be operated in accordance with all legal requirements, including
but not limited to occupancy limitations for new facilities.
              

 EXISTING LAW :
New.

 JUSTIFICATION :
The Department of Homeless Services (DHS) is charged with the
responsibility of housing the homeless people throughout New York
City. The 2008 Homeless Outreach population Estimate (HOPE) results
showed that there are an estimated total of 3,306 street homeless
individuals citywide.  There are 1,263 unsheltered individuals in
Manhattan, 279 in the Bronx., 336 in Brooklyn, 135 in Queens, 152 in
Staten Island, and 1,141 in the subway. 58% of the City's street
homeless were on the streets of Manhattan while only 16% were living
in Brooklyn. Although the Department of Homeless Services argues that
23% of the homeless people report that they are from Brooklyn, the
fact still remains that 77% of the other homeless individuals are
coming from boroughs other than Brooklyn, points to the need for a
Manhattan location because of its centralization.

DHS claims that on average only 40 people enter the Bellevue shelter
everyday. This number however, only takes into account those homeless
individuals who are new to the systems or have not been in the system
for more than a year and does not include people who return to seek
shelter again within a year. In contrast, when the number of new
entrants to the shelter system is combined with the number of
individuals already in the system, it appears that on average 50-150
individuals enter Bellevue's intake center each day. When the weather
takes a turn for the worse, whether a frigid day in the winter or a
rainstorm in the summer, large increases in the number of homeless
that enter the Manhattan shelter are observed. On January 3, 2008, the
coldest night of the year in 2008, the temperature was 12 degrees
Fahrenheit and the intake center had 241 men come in off the street.

Outreach teams serve the chronically homeless population and are
charged with transporting people to intake or to "safe haven" beds, of
which there are only 298 according to DHS's latest numbers. The "safe
haven" sites are smaller decentralized shelters that try to encourage
entry by reducing the bureaucratic barriers to entry that often deter
homeless from approaching the shelter system. opponents to the closure
of the intake center point out that 500 proposed "safe Haven" beds are
grossly inadequate for the more than 22,000 homeless men that Bellevue
served in Fiscal Year 2007. Additionally, opponents maintain that the
"safe havens" cannot serve the broad range of homeless men that
Bellevue serves because the "safe havens" are targeted to serve a
smaller niche of the chronically homeless.

These points factored in weigh heavily in favor of an intake center
remaining in a Manhattan location rather than the proposed transfer of
its functions to the Brooklyn Bedford-Atlantic Armory site.  Although
the intake will not be able to remain in Bellevue because of plans to
sell the building to a developer, another Manhattan location must be
identified.

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :
None to the state.

 LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :
Unknown.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act shall take effect on the sixtieth day after it shall have
become a law.