Project Renewal: Eric Rosenbaum

Since 1967, Project Renewal has pioneered programs that provide health, homes, and jobs to New York's homeless community. The Five-O-One is joined by Eric Rosenbaum, CEO of Project Renewal. Tune in to learn all about emergency, transitional, and permanent housing and how the pandemic has impacted the city's most vulnerable population.

To learn more about this work visit www.projectrenewal.org.

Talia: So homelessness has been a growing problem in New York City for decades now. The city's homeless population today is the highest it has been since the Great Depression. 60,000 people sleep in municipal shelters in New York City nearly every single night, almost 1/3 of those are single adults, and this population has been growing by 1000 individuals every year for the past 10 years. Eric, what do you think are the root causes of this growth? 

Eric: So there are two big causes. The first is that our mental health system used to treat people who were poor and had significant mental illness in psychiatric institutions. We came to realize that those institutions were cruel -- they locked people up against their will and violated the civil liberties of those individuals. So there was a real commitment to replace those facilities with facilities that were based in the community, and provide the resources that would help people achieve maximum independence. The problem is we closed the psychiatric hospital beds, but we didn't build the community-based facilities that were needed to replace them. More recently, we've also been depopulating our jails and prisons, again, a value driven decision, because people with mental illness often don't get the services and support that they need in prison and are jailed for relatively minor crimes. But even when they are released from prison, they're often released directly to homeless shelter. Because we don't the community-based housing with social service supports for people who need that kind of help. So given that these other two systems have been shrinking, people are ending up on the streets or in shelter with significant mental health issues, substance use issues, and histories of criminal justice involvement that make it difficult for them to find housing elsewhere.

Talia: So Project Renewal has provided support to that growing homeless population since 1967. Can you talk a little bit about what the organization looks like today and what you're offering to this population?

Eric: So Project Renewal got its start in the Bowery, and it was called Manhattan Bowery Corporation. And the real initial success was treating alcoholics on the Bowery. Project Renewal invented a way of treating people with alcoholism that didn't involve putting them in the hospital. And research showed that this particular approach was just as successful as hospital-based systems, but a fraction of the cost, because so many of these people were also homeless. Project Renewal became a provider of shelter. And from shelter, we grew to provide supported housing, which is permanent housing, that's highly affordable for people who are very, very poor, but also has social services on site to help people deal with the challenges that made it difficult for them to be successful independently in the first place. We've also become one of the largest providers of health care including psychiatry, primary care, and substance use treatment for homeless New Yorkers. And then in fact, we have licensed health clinics embedded in some of our shelters. We operate mobile medical vans that deliver primary care to shelters that don't have clinics in them, or to people on the streets. We have one mobile van that is dedicated to women's breast cancer screening and does mammography in underserved areas. And we've developed workforce development programs like our culinary arts training program -- that's a six month internship, that gets people who are homeless or have some of these other challenges, the kinds of jobs in food service that include benefits and have career opportunities for growth and development. We've even developed a catering company called City Beads Kitchens, which now employs over 50 of our own graduates, and delivers over 3 million meals a year to homeless New Yorkers, in our shelters and in shelters throughout the city. So we consider ourselves to be a really comprehensive provider of services to this most uniquely challenged population. 

Talia: So I know that you guys have a number of housing models, can you share with our listeners a little bit about what those are? 

Eric: Sure. So we develop and operate what's called supported housing, which is ultra-low-income housing with social services. And by ultra-low income, what I mean is that the rent that people pay is 30% of their income, whatever their income is --  if their income goes up or down, they'll still only pay 30% of that, and the rest is subsidized by government. And the social services are on site, so that people have a real relationship with the clients. And the clients have real relationships with their case manager. Often in these buildings, we also have a set aside for community affordable housing, people who just need subsidized housing, but don't really need the social services, so that we're building a little bit of a community and we're mixing people with high needs, with people who just need affordable housing, we also operate transitional housing, which is designed for people whose level of need is even higher, and they need more intensive support for two to three years, let's say before they might be ready to move to supported housing. So it's a higher level of care, we have programs that are directed at reentry from prison. So we have teams that are indebted in prisons, and about six months before someone's about to be released on parole, we start to work with them in the prison. And then we secure an apartment for them, and bring them to that apartment and work with them. So they have a smooth transition from prison to supported housing for a couple of years or longer, to make sure that they're able to function in society. And we know that that breaks the cycle of recidivism.

Talia: So with all these housing options, why do we continue to see so many homeless people living on the streets?

Eric: It's a great question. You would think that New York, which has such a social commitment to addressing homelessness would be the place where you don't see this, what you don't see in New York that you see in other places are tent cities and huge homeless encampments, because we have shelters that people will go to instead. But there is a persistent population of somewhere between, let's say 3,000-5,000 people who do not feel safe entering the shelter system. For some there's a perception that shelter isn't safe. And some people have had bad experiences in shelter. Traditional shelter is congregate, meaning that people are placed in a large dormitory, where beds and lockers are just three feet apart from one another. So someone who isn't feeling safe and in control of their environment to begin with, now is sleeping with 20..25...30, maybe even 50 other people in one large room, so it can be very, very chaotic. 

Talia: Well, what do you do to ensure security in these environments?

Eric: We provide 24-hour security at every one of our shelters. And there are a lot of services and support that we provide to help reduce the possibility of incidents, but incidents happen in shelter because the people who come to shelter have problems and challenges. We can't guarantee that bad things won't happen. The city has developed different models to try and reduce this. One is called a safe haven, a low threshold drop-in center where people can take a shower and can find a bed. It'll be much more semiprivate than the large dormitory setting of shelter. And we think that shelters should be smaller, instead of 200 beds which is a typical size for a single shelter, we'd like to see more shelters that are 100 beds or less because it reduces the feeling of size and chaos, and makes it easier to have a one-to-one relationship between our staff and the client.  

Talia: I've been seeing a lot more families that are homeless together -- is that is that a trend you're seeing?

Eric: Family homelessness had been rising quite substantially for the last decade. And unlike single adult homelessness, which as I was saying is driven very much by issues of mental illness and substance use, family homelessness is much more directly related to poverty in general and to domestic violence. Domestic Violence is often a consequence of the overcrowded housing that people find themselves in, that leads them into shelter in the first place. Families don't usually go directly to shelter, once they're evicted from their own apartment, they'll maybe go stay with the grandparents, or with an aunt and uncle, or with other family members. It can take a year or more of this shuffling around and couch surfing before a family will end up in the shelter system. And just to give you a sense of how many people are in that limbo, there are about let's say, 20,000-25,000 children who we know are living in shelter. But there are 120,000 children in the school system are homeless. So that means that for every child that's in shelter, there are five that are in this limbo state of not being in their own apartment, but not in shelter. That's how intense the pressure is. And we also know that during the pandemic, the census of families with children in shelter has actually come down mostly because of eviction prevention. So since there's a moratorium on evictions, people aren't being evicted. And we're worried about a huge influx of people in shelter because of the number of New Yorkers who aren't employed and are unable to make rent. 

Talia: So in your opinion, what kind of policies need to be put in place to aid this growing population?

Eric: The mayor since the beginning of administration, announced a really aggressive and very expensive program to create or preserve 300,000 units of affordable housing in New York City. And he's been making progress --  I think about 30,000 units a year have actually been added. But those statistics don't address the bleeding away of rent regulated and rent stabilized apartments. And as neighborhoods have been gentrified, what used to be the affordable housing stock, which was a rent-controlled apartment, has been dramatically reduced, so much so that even if every one of these 300,000, newer preserved units happens, we still will be essentially just even with the level of affordable housing we had 20 years ago. 

Talia: But you're also taking over some hotels, right, like the Lucerne on the Upper West Side?

Eric: Well the temporary use of hotels was implemented last April as a temporary measure to reduce the likelihood of COVID transmission in those congregate shelters.

Talia: Was it effective in preventing the spread of COVID?

Eric: Absolutely. At the very beginning of this pandemic, my greatest fear was that the virus would literally, you know, race through the shelter environments. And we house 1,000 people every night in shelter, and since the beginning of the pandemic, we have had only a little more than 100 confirmed cases of COVID throughout our entire system of shelter and permanent housing. We've only had two deaths from COVID among our entire client base.

Talia: How big is that client base?

Eric: We house 2,000 people – 1,000 of them permanently and 1,000 every night in shelter. I can only imagine the multiplier of those numbers had we remained in crowded shelter. One of the things we found interesting was that three of the five hotels that we've occupied for temporary purposes actually have SRO tenants still living in them from 30…40…50 years ago, when those hotels were permanent housing. So what goes around comes around. The lesson we should be learning this time is that those hotels were converted into permanent housing by private landlords as those neighborhoods gentrified. Those landlords desperately wanted to take economic advantage of these rapidly rising property. Values, so they did everything in their power to move these SRO tenants out. Today, what we're proposing is that nonprofits like mine, take over these hotels and acquire them --  because many of them are in financial distress, and convert them to permanent housing and small studio apartments. Because hotel rooms aren't big and they already have a private bathroom, so we can add a small kitchenette. And unlike what happened 40 years ago, these will remain permanent housing forever, because that's our mission. So it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to create 10s of 1000s of units of housing very rapidly, which can reduce the pressure on the shelter system and would allow us to make fundamental changes in the shelter system; like make shelters smaller, provide more privacy, and make sure that people are getting the services they need. And make sure that when they're ready for housing, there's housing for them to move to so many people are unsheltered today, not just because they need services, but because they have a housing voucher, and there's no apartment for them to move into.

Talia: Well, I know you guys got a lot of pushback last summer when you came to the Upper West Side. What was that like for the organization?

Eric: It was very, very difficult. At first, we had very little notice that we were going to move into the Lucerne. And we didn't know that there were two other hotels in the immediate neighborhood that had also been used for de-densification of congregate shelter. The city didn't really notify the neighborhood of what was going on. So for most people who live in the neighborhood, their first awareness of this was when buses pulled up to the hotel and people started moving in. So it was a shock to the neighborhood. They didn't understand much about homelessness, they didn't understand much about the services that were being provided, and they didn't understand this was temporary. It also happened at a moment where there wasn't a lot going on, on the streets, restaurants were just being allowed for the very first time to have outdoor dining. Most retail stores were still closed, and people were just venturing out of lockdown. So the visibility of homeless people on the streets was outsized relative to what else was happening. There was also a problem of a lot of people noticing public urination, and thought that this was all due to the clients that we were serving or other people who are homeless. What folks didn't realize is that there are many people who are homeless who remain invisible on the streets, because they can go to a public restroom, or to a public library…or they'll go into a large crowded retail store and use the bathroom. All of those places were closed. So there were so many things happening at the same time that were confusing people and scaring people. We kind of became the flashpoint of this. But I think some really good things came out of this -- there was a neighborhood group that formed in opposition to our clients and their placement in this hotel. And as you probably know, there's still ongoing lawsuits about this. But other groups of people rose up in support and started providing services to them, clothing and toiletries and food and just plain companionship, because people who are homeless are sometimes noticeable based on how they dress and frankly, because of their race. Some of our homeless clients didn't feel safe walking around the neighborhood or taking advantage of the parks. So some of these supportive groups actually created spiritual walks in the park where it was like a guided tour in which groups of our clients would go to the park with a guide so that it was a safe environment for everybody concerned.

Talia: It does feel like we're kind of at a turning point because you're saying you had all these supporters, but even those who weren't supportive of the move to the Upper West Side, I think it did raise awareness about this population. Do you feel like this is a turning point and our politicians will do more moving forward to aid this demographic now that we have some momentum?

Eric: It is an opportunity for a turning point, which is why we've been trying to meet with all of the candidates for the November elections. We're not only electing a new mayor, but most of the seats in city council are going to be occupied by people who are new and there are other offices that are up for election. We want to make sure that this new administration is well informed and educated about the root causes of homelessness, about the structure of the system, about how it's funded, and about the services that are available and which ones are effective and needed, so that the new administration can make good policy decisions. The most important policy decision we're advocating for is this rapid conversion of underused hotels into permanent housing. Because housing is the solution to homelessness and housing with services is the solution for people who are homeless with mental illness or substance use issues. If there's one thing I wish, it's that ordinary New Yorkers would be willing to learn a little bit more, because that learning would help them move past some of the fear for their safety that they feel --  some of what makes people afraid is just difference that people look and behave differently.

Talia: As our city rebounds from this pandemic, what's the vaccination plan for this demographic?

Eric: We've been actively vaccinating our clients. We're all quite concerned about this phenomenon of vaccine hesitation. A lot of people of color have had awful interactions and history with the healthcare system. And I've certainly heard some stories that have really brought this home to me. So it's difficult to get people to trust the system that they haven't trusted for many reasons up till now. But we're making a lot of progress. More and more and more people are willing to accept the vaccine because other residents, their neighbors, and their friends have taken it without many side effects. So there are some people who are hesitant at first because they didn't want to be at the front of the line, but are now more willing to take it because they see everyone else taking it. And we're continuing to educate people. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which requires only one shot is also an enormous help, because there are people who are willing to take one shot, but not two. We've put the vaccine on our mobile vans, and we're also bringing the vaccine closer to where the clients are. Because anything we can do to reduce the barriers just means more people who are willing to say yes.

Talia: Okay, last question. For those of us who are interested in getting involved in your work, what are some things that we can do?

Eric: For one, volunteer; reach out to your community board and ask what nonprofits are active in that neighborhood and then connect to them and ask to volunteer. Learn about homelessness; there are resources, we have videos of seminars we've given. Become active in this election campaign; ask the candidates what their solutions are, and don't let them give you pat answers. I was at a forum where the candidates were asked if they would commit to ending congregate shelter in their first term, and it's a kind of a gotcha question which everyone wants to say yes to. We're not going to end shelter in the next four years, even if we do everything possible, but we can reduce the population in shelter; we can make sure that we're providing the services that people need, that shelter is safe, and we can welcome people into our neighborhoods. We can actually fight for more affordable housing in every neighborhood in New York City. Those are some things that would make a big difference.