[NYAPRS Enews] TU: Number of Homeless Children Explodes in State, Albany

[Briana Gilmore]

NYAPRS Note: It is no longer a contentious idea that safe housing and a stable living environment are major contributors to overall well-being, and that the inverse is also true. Unstable living arrangements create adverse experiences in children and young adults that can contribute to trauma, mental health and substance abuse conditions, and other social misplacement. For adults as well, homelessness contributes to reduced capacities to manage all facets of well-being. The Medicaid Redesign Team has established a Social Determinants of Health working group, which Harvey will be a part of, to include but go beyond housing to the linkages between social systems that cause the breakdown of health across the spectrum. Closely linked to the lack of housing resources is also unemployment, a lack of adequate transportation, and food insecurity. NYS and other governance bodies must explore options for providing linkages between stable social resources in order to achieve the goals set forth in both the Medicaid Redesign transition and the 1115 waiver implementation through DSRIP.

Number of Homeless Children Explodes in State, Albany
Times Union; Lauren Stanforth, 6/23/2014

In a five-year time span, school-age children who were classified as homeless almost doubled in New York state, a trend driven by the recession and family displacements due to Tropical Storm Irene and Superstorm Sandy.
More than 2,000 school-age children in the four-county Capital Region were classified as homeless during the 2012-2013 year, according to data reviewed by the Times Union. The city of Albany's levels more than doubled what they were before the recession hit in late 2008.
The data, reported by school districts through the state Education Department, illustrates that promising forecasts by some economists have not panned out for tens of thousands of New York families.
"From New York City to Buffalo, homelessness has been on a trajectory that's unsustainable," said William Gettman Jr., executive director of St. Catherine's Center for Children, which runs the busy Marillac Family Shelter in Albany.
The data includes not only children who are living in motels, shelters, campgrounds and abandoned buildings, but those who are temporarily living with others - with or without their parents.
Tonya Sykes wishes her children didn't count as part of that list. The 36-year-old mother and her four children have been living at the Schuyler Inn in Menands, a publicly subsidized housing shelter operated by Father Peter Young, since early June after a series of events drove her from her Third Street apartment in Albany.
She was displaced when a radiator pipe burst and she said her landlord would not immediately fix the interior flooding. She ended up seeking help from the Albany County Department of Social Services because she lacked the money to find another apartment after her job as a baker at Freihofer's ended when she missed too much work. Sykes said she ultimately would have had to quit because her children's lives were spinning out of control. Both of her teenage sons are on probation, her 7-year-old daughter suffers from asthma and her 3-year-old son was found wandering the Albany streets at 1:30 a.m. while she was working a night shift as her older children slept.
The Schuyler Inn, which receives funding from the Albany County DSS to house the homeless and disabled, provides three meals a day and a safe environment. The worn-out motel rooms have scant fixtures except a small television and two double beds. Sykes' daughter is in second grade in Albany schools, and her youngest son busies himself coloring, watching television and riding a tricycle that's too small for his tall frame.
Sykes cries when she thinks about her 20-year-old daughter moving back to New York City because there were too many mouths to feed. She's shifted her focus to her two youngest kids and providing a better upbringing. "They only have me, and I only have them,'" she said.
The stories of why other parents lose their residences are varied. For some, service-sector jobs do not pay enough to afford the escalating cost of child care and rent. For others, struggles with mental health issues and substance abuse inhibits their ability to provide for themselves or their children. Most are female and single parents, but the number of two-parent families in trouble is growing. Meanwhile, the waiting list for government-subsidized housing, which often is the only affordable housing available, is years long, local experts say.
Wendy Crookes, a case manager at St. Catherine's who finds permanent housing for shelter residents, said she's had parents lose their housing suddenly because a building was condemned for cockroach or bedbug infestations. Two mothers she worked with had 40-hour workweek jobs at a chain department store, but had their hours and benefits cut and could no longer afford rent. A studio or one-bedroom, which can barely fit a four-person family, runs $650 to $700 a month, she said, adding "that's an expensive rent if you make minimum wage."
About one-fourth of homeless children in the four-county region are from Albany, where 504 children were reported as homeless in 2012-2013. Albany has more than two times the number of homeless children than Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga Springs.
While the largest concentration of homeless children is in urban areas, Ballston Spa, considered a suburban school district, also has a sizable homeless population - 184 children during the 2012-2013 school year. High levels of urban poverty in the village of Ballston Spa, coupled with rural poverty in various mobile home parks, compounds the problem, said Kerri Canzone-Ball, Ballston Spa's director of special education. Most of the children are what the state calls "doubled up," meaning they are temporarily living at a residence that is not one owned or maintained by a parent, she added.
In fact, the majority of children classified as homeless in Saratoga and Rensselaer counties live in doubled-up situations, according to the data that is also compiled by county.
Many Capital Region families in emergency situations are also sent to motels and hotels by their county Department of Social Services. But officials at Saratoga County's DSS said they try to keep the number at a minimal level. On a recent June day, two families were staying in motels, compared to 26 single people, according to Patrick Maxwell, the county's deputy DSS commissioner.
Albany County has also actively worked to keep families out of motels, said Liz Hitt, executive director of the Homeless and Travelers Aid Society. In October 2012, 80 families were living in hotels and motels - most of them at the Schuyler Inn. But in April there were just four families in motels, Hitt said, adding that the county has worked harder to encourage families to stay with a friend or relative.
Still, in Albany County a large segment of homeless families are placed in temporary shelters because that option is available. In the 2012-2013 school year, 303 out of 792 homeless children were in Albany County shelters, according to the state data. The largest facility is Marillac, an unassuming outpost of buildings in a secluded area off Washington Avenue Extension.
The 24-unit shelter has the barest of essentials - a common living area with a kitchen table and single bed - encased in plastic to avoid bedbugs. A second bedroom holds two more small beds and a dresser. Overnight visitors are not allowed. There is a playground in the facility's fenced-in courtyard.
Marillac has served 367 kids during the 2013-2014 school year. Case managers try to get families permanent housing as quickly as possible, but the maximum length of stay has increased to about 90 days. "We had someone move out this morning, and we'll have a family move in tonight," Gettman said recently.
Kids staying at the shelter attend school districts throughout Albany County. Children classified as homeless top more than 50 each in the school districts of Cohoes, Watervliet and South Colonie. Federal laws require that each district have a homeless liaison and provide transportation for a child to their home district to help maintain stability for the children.
Ronald Anderson, a single parent with daughters aged 10 and 15, tried to stay at the Marillac Family Shelter in 2012 after he was evicted for coming up $75 short on his monthly rent. But Anderson, who has served prison sentences for drug-related crimes, bristled at the shelter's strict rules that he said reminded him of incarceration. Instead, his family turned to the Schuyler Inn for a couple of months before St. Catherine's helped him pay for a new apartment on Quail Street with federally subsidized money.
Anderson was out of work after injuring his hand repairing pallets at a local company. He and the mother of his seven children split up the family because it was too expensive to keep them together, he said.
Now, the 51-year-old father said he's receiving medical treatment for long-ignored mental health issues and attending Schenectady County Community College in hopes of working as a chemical-dependency counselor.
"They have a better attitude," Anderson said, referring to his daughters. "They're happier. They're doing much better in school. They finally have a place where they can say 'I live here.'"
For advocates for the homeless, finding a real solution to the problem seems an almost impossibility. They say one of the largest stumbling blocks - wages have not kept pace with housing costs - is something they have no control over. "More than a quarter or our families have employment income," said Kevin O'Connor, executive director of Joseph's House and Shelter, which helped 52 homeless families last year in Troy. "But, obviously, it's not enough."
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Number-of-homeless-children-still-high-after-5570153.php
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kilakwa.net/pipermail/nyaprs_kilakwa.net/attachments/20140624/01845e17/attachment.html>