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Nearly 48,000 people are living in permanent housing and avoided or exited shelter

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 28, 2016

Contact: Lauren Gray (lgray@dhs.nyc.gov, 917-790-3890)

 

LATEST SHELTER REPAIR SCORECARD SHOWS THAT OPEN VIOLATIONS CONTINUE TO DECREASE WITHIN HOMELESS SHELTERS

City aggressively inspecting and repairing homeless shelters

NEW YORK—The City announced today that its Shelter Repair Squad, in partnership with shelter providers, have cut outstanding building code violations by 83% within traditional shelters since the end of January 2016.

  • Open violations within non-cluster shelters have fallen by 10,226 (83%) since the end of January 2016, when the Shelter Repair Squad 2.0, a multi-agency taskforce assigned to repairing homeless shelters, became fully operational.
  • At the end of October there were 2,121 open violations across the 382 non-cluster homeless shelter buildings.
  • This reduction in violations was achieved despite the increased number of inspections at shelters: 1,441 inspections were undertaken in October alone, and 12,986 inspections have been undertaken year-to-date.
  • Cluster shelters (not identified for closure) continue to have the most issues with 13,847 open violations. Cluster shelters are groups of individual apartment units within privately owned buildings. The violation total reported here includes all violations within the entire building, not just those relating to shelter units.
  • The administration has announced a plan to phase out of cluster shelters and has been doing so, ending the use of 3 cluster buildings in October.

The Shelter Repair Scorecard lists conditions at all homeless shelters in New York City that do not meet applicable regulations, and makes it possible to track progress in resolving them. An analysis of the remaining open non-cluster violations indicates that more than 80 percent will require significant repairs or capital work, which will take substantially longer to complete.

Cluster shelters are groups of individual apartments in larger buildings, and the violation total includes all the violations in each building, not those solely relating to the cluster units. The administration has announced a plan to phase out the use of cluster shelters, where the majority of the violations are found. As the City ends the use of cluster shelters, returning them to the market so that the apartments can serve as low-rent housing, it will insist that building owners bring their buildings up to code and will work to ensure that they remain part of the City’s rent-regulated stock or enter an affordability program.

The scorecard can be accessed here.

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