PAF 9103: Group Problem Memo

To: Mayor Bill de Blasio From: Jonatta Moore, Michelle Anasa, and Matthew Simon: Graduate Students at Baruch College, School of Public Affairs Subject: Child Homelessness in New York City Date: November 12, 2015 The Problem:

Part I: Child Homelessness

The 2013 mayoral election introduced New York residents to progressive candidate, Bill de Blasio who proclaimed New York a “tale of two cities.” His progressive agenda and campaign promises to bring sweeping changes propelled him to victory. After 12 years under Michael Bloomberg’s leadership, New Yorkers were ready for a change that would shift the pendulum of power back to the people as businesses were the focus of auspicious policies during the Bloomberg era.

De Blasio was critical of his predecessor and his criticism were not without merit. During Bloomberg’s tenure; inequality widened, funding for human services decreased, homelessness skyrocketed, the rich got richer, and rent prices increased substantially.[i] By the time Bill de Blasio was sworn into office, New York City was the most unequal city in the United States. [ii]

Reports from 2013 indicate that 1.7 million New Yorkers live below the federal poverty threshold and 1.8 million New Yorkers rely on soup pantries and require food assistance. [iii] Additionally, 1 in 3 children live in poverty.[iv] The rising cost of living married with stagnant wages have been a struggle and burden on families and contributed to the widening inequality. As Patrick Markee, Deputy Director of Advocacy at Coalition for the Homeless shared, “many homeless people are working. A third of our homeless families in our shelter system are working, many of them working two jobs. They simply can't afford apartment rents at market costs. [v] This widening gap is having a significant impact on the most vulnerable in our city.

Underfunding for social service programs, school closures, rent affordability, and a decline in wages during Bloomberg’s tenure correlates with the rise in child homelessness. There are currently 25, 000 homeless children in shelters spread across the city. [vi] This is a staggering increase of 250% in the past 20 years. [vii] As the Institute of Child Poverty and Homelessness points out, 80,000 children in the NYC school system between 2012-2013 were homeless at one point. [viii] Consider also the fact that these children are also experiencing hunger and it exacerbates the bleakness they experience every day.

With homelessness skyrocketing, the focus has shifted to addressing the chronically homeless adult population in most cities, while children and families are often forgotten. As Joe Volk, CEO of Community Advocates (a Milwaukee based organization) explains, it is easier to care for a single homeless adult compare to families as the cost of childcare, purchasing furniture and food increases the cost for cities.[ix] However, these are factors that cities must include in funding to ensure that children have stable homes and environments. For homelessness also leads to inequalities in health and education for children in the shelter system. Donna Anderson, Director of Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness (ICPH) highlights that “there is too much emphasis on getting families out of shelters rather than making sure they don’t return again.”[x]

In essence, as NYC addresses the problem of increasing child homelessness, the question becomes; how can the city provide services to children and their families to ensure there are no long term devastating impacts on them? More specifically however, how can policymakers ensure that children are not going to end up in the shelter system again?

Part II: The Lasting Implications of Children in Homeless Shelters

The lack of services offered to low income families can impact children before they are even born into the cycle of poverty. As children begin to develop before and after birth, their brains are undergoing rapid changes that can never be replicated. The human brain begins to build perceptions and understandings about the outside world that stays with a person their entire life. According to Jack Shonkoff, the human brain will create, “700 to 1,000 new neural connections every second” during the first years of life. [xi] Once connections in the brain have been made and are not changed over the course of time, they simply create deeper grooves to allow the brain to function more efficiently. This key time in a child’s development will shape the way they view the world for the rest of their life and how they react to their surroundings. Children raised in shelters face higher instances of food insecurity, violence, anxiety, and lack of direct parental care. These outside factors can be internalized as a coping mechanism and lead to depression, somatization, and delinquency among other lifelong ailments. By the time these children are old enough to go to school, they have already been burdened with experiences that will shape their lives through no fault of their own.

The school system is another turning point where homeless children are again put in scenarios that produce more failures than success’. Due to being raised in high stress environments such as a homeless shelter, children are four times as likely to be developmentally delayed and twice more likely to have learning disabilities than their classmates. [xii] Children who are already struggling to learn societal norms are forced further behind due to the fact that 28% of homeless children will attend two or three schools in a given year. [xiii] These children are being deprived of the daily structure and order that most people take for granted and pay the long term price for it. By the time children are able to attend school full time, 47% of those coming from homeless families will struggle with mental ailments such as depression or anxiety, at rate that is almost three times greater than their peers. [xiv]

There are lingering issues and lasting impacts to child homelessness that will continue to fester if policy addressing this issue is not implemented. Health related problems, access to education, environmental concerns, abuse, and economic growth are just a few of the factors that are by products of child homelessness. Economist, Joseph Stiglitz describes in his article, “Inequality and the American Child,” how children from low income families make up just 9% of elite universities compared to 74% from middle and upper income families. [xv] The ability to obtain a college degree and ameliorate one’s economic standing is tied to the circumstances of how they were raised.

Part III:

Being born into poverty should not have to be synonymous with being destined to an entire life of destitution. The ability to rise above negative circumstances and create a more stable life for oneself is one of the core values for which America is known. Unfortunately, when a parent is having difficulty meeting even just the most basic survival needs of their family, such as food and shelter, there is little time or energy left for them to spend thinking about the long-term emotional repercussions of their living situation on their children. This puts the newest generation of children growing up in homeless shelters at a much higher risk of becoming homeless adults and being unable to break out of the cycle of poverty. Addressing child homelessness is one of the most fundamental steps to take in order to give these children a fighting chance. As stated by the National Center for Children in Poverty, “to enhance the well- being of low-income families, New York State should […] develop and implement a comprehensive strategy for upgrading the quality of informal child care” [xvi]. Increasing the reach of mental health related social services is imperative to increasing the quality of our citizenry as a whole and maintaining that upward trend throughout the future.

Consider also the moral obligation that we as a society must care for the most vulnerable in our society. Their fate is a condition they did not choose but one they were born into. Delaying this problem ensures that a great percentage of our population will be unable to contribute to society and further burdens society and the economy as a whole.

Policy Options:

Part I: Increase Minimum Wage

Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently increased the minimum wage of fast food workers to $15, a move that makes fast food workers in NYC the highest earners in the country. However, this increase does not apply to other industries as the minimum wage in NY still stands at $8.75.

New York City is currently in the midst of a homeless crisis; which is on par with homelessness crisis of the Great Depression. [xvii] However, as homeless advocates have indicated, a fair percentage of people in homeless shelters are working families and adults. [xviii] Reporter, Mireya Navarro describes in her New York Times article that, "more than one out of four families in shelters, 28 percent, include at least one employed adult, city figures show, and 16 percent of single adults in shelters hold jobs."[xiv] Sadly, with the increasing living costs, “working several jobs does not mean having a home.” [xx] By increasing the minimum wage, it will alleviate the financial burden on millions of families and have an effect on child homelessness and the inequality gap in the city.

Criticism that a hike in wages will increase unemployment are uncertain. This criticism was leveled at Seattle when they increased the minimum and recent data indicate that Seattle has seen jobs and employment increases. Additionally, increasing the minimum wage is beneficial to households who contribute tremendously to the running of this city. Mayor De Blasio and City Comptroller, Scott Stringer have called for a hike in the city’s minimum wage. There are economic benefits to increasing the minimum wage and if we are to tackle the issue of child homelessness, increasing the minimum wage is a reform that has positive results. In order to stop the cycle of poverty and address issues that will only continue to worsen, legislature must be introduced and laws enacted to close the disparities gap that exist. It costs the city, $3,000 a month to house a family in a homeless shelter, [xxi] however, this is a financial burden that can be reduced and become avoidable should the minimum wage increase.

Part II: Long-Term Supportive Housing

One of the key components to ending the cycle of poverty among homeless children is intervention at a young age. A study of children who have been successful despite being born into these bleak conditions has offered insight into what factors contributed to their success. Parents who navigated their children through the rigors of shelter life cited direct involvement with their children, relationships with teachers and intervention specialists, and a network of caring adults as the main reasons for their children’s’ success. [xxii] These elements, if successfully replicated can all help to elevate a generation of children out of shelters and into a promising future.

The easiest way to make sure that parents have a continued closeness is to make sure that children are not being separated as they often are in instances of prolonged homelessness. By taking a portion of the $241 million that New York City spent putting homeless families in dilapidated cluster sites the city can appropriate those funds towards long term supportive housing. This would help the city consolidate multiple problems such as, housing, mental health, social programs, with one action. [xxiii] These housing options could offer counseling and addiction treatment problems on lower floors while offering family apartments on higher levels. This action would not only keep the families intact and stable, but would mitigate the main reason for low income families avoiding treatment; which is lack of funds for travel. Families would be able to eliminate the worry of housing by simply taking care of their immediate issues and would be able to prepare better for their future.

Another positive stemming from a commitment to long-term supportive housing is that, it allows children to remain in the same school district without interruption. This allows teachers and support faculty to develop relationships with not only the students but with the parents as well. Teachers and scholastic support have been listed by families as more important than food when it comes to the value placed on how it will help keep children from staying in poverty. [xxiv]

The implementation of long-term supportive housing in New York City is not an extra expense that the city cannot afford, but rather a corrective measure about how much is currently being spent. The current solution of taking people and shuffling them from place to place has proven to be a failure for the thousands of adults and children who are currently homeless in New York. There is no reason that allocation changes cannot be made in order to avoid dooming another generation and placing more children at risk. The effects of chronic homelessness on children cannot be denied, but that does not mean that we do not possess the means or motivation to make the proper changes necessary.

Part III: Family Support Services

To help give homeless children the best chance at breaking out of the poverty cycle and improving their circumstances as they mature into adulthood, the focus of services and resource allocation needs to be shifted from the current mindset of treatment, to a more proactive approach of prevention. When we strip the issue down to its bare skeleton, the main goal for these children’s futures is to achieve a level of financial stability early on in their adult life which would eliminate the threat of homelessness for them and their new families that they will be establishing as they age. It is a simple concept and the straightforward logic cannot be denied. How will we, the citizens of NYC as a body politic, come to a consensus about the best way to achieve this goal though? As was previously mentioned, increasing the minimum wage and providing more supportive housing options are two extremely effective ways to ease some of the strain on what is already one of the most vulnerable populations within this city. If we are to focus primarily on the children of these families, we must act as soon as possible in order to mitigate the negative effects of growing up homeless. In order to give a child a fighting chance at a future with a home, it is essential for them to have the mental and emotional strength and stability to overcome the fears and doubts that were subconsciously instilled within them due to their homelessness. This will build the foundation necessary to grow into a self-reliant adult that is not plagued by the negative aspects of their upbringing. These children deserve to be on a level playing field with the rest of their generation. The reality is that they start life at a disadvantage compared to their housed counterparts in ways that go deeper and are far harder to overcome than simple financial disparities. 33% of homeless adolescents have at least one major mental disorder that interferes with their daily activity, including but not limited to anxiety, depression, and withdrawal, compared to 19% of their housed peers [xxv]. The relatively excessive emotional obstacles for homeless children start much earlier than the teenage years however. As early as preschool it becomes apparent that homeless children are less able to achieve developmental milestones at the same rate as non-homeless children. Studies have shown that the likelihood of having a learning disability doubles for homeless children, when comparing them to the data corresponding to non-homeless children [xxvi]. The collateral damage of growing up homeless does not stop at just developmental delays. As the children grow and enter elementary school, reports show approximately 36% behave aggressively on a consistent basis, compared to just 17% of other school-age children [xxvii]. The level of aggression exhibited by children has been proven to have a very strong link to how much violence they witness within their households and amongst family members, essentially just imitating what they see rather consistently and think to be the norm, carrying the belief that violence is the way to settle conflicts well past adolescence and resulting in a rather tumultuous adulthood as well [xxviii].

The statistics cannot be denied. Legislation must be modified in order to meet the undeniable need for increased accessibility to mental health services for impoverished families, all of which are based on the core value of being proactive and recognizing the importance of early intervention. One solution would be to increase funding to programs focused on early childhood development and make available these specialists to families in the shelter system. These trained professionals provide invaluable assistance to parents and children in a multitude of ways. The specialist would have a caseload of low-income families and through home visits and continuous relationship development, risk factors such as abuse, neglect, mental health issues and substance abuse issues are identified and then addressed with a plan of action. By providing state funded support to help get the children off to a physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy start, their ability to not only survive, but also thrive, is increased exponentially. The specialists serve as advocates for these families by connecting them to services such as welfare, helping them apply for food stamps, or guiding them through the process of obtaining Medicaid. These specialists differ from just general social workers however, because they go beyond helping families and children meet just their basic needs. Using their early childhood development knowledge they also provide guidance in child rearing promote positive interactions between parents and babies. This could be done through weekly or bi- weekly assessments to determine what changes need to be made with the methods being utilized, and to ensure that the best and most beneficial course of action is taken. The objective of increasing the number of early childhood development specialists is to ensure a higher quality of life for the coming generations, which in the future will contribute to the improvement of society as a whole. In order for any of these positive effects to be seen, we must be willing to invest in proactive methods involving early childhood intervention, rather than waiting for problems to snowball into insurmountable issues.

From an economic standpoint the benefits of increased participation in education programs far outweigh the costs. Ensuring the proper care and rearing of a child living below the poverty line and the shelter system would be positive reform. The harm of inequality and child homelessness is that it is not beneficial to society and robs the city of a sizable portion of its citizenry who could positively contribute to its prosperous future.

[i] Brown, Arlene. “Bloomberg by the Numbers” The Nation 18 Apr. 2013. Web.

[ii] Roberts, Sam. “Gap Between Manhattan’s Rich and Poor Is Greatest in the US: Census Finds” NY Times 17 Sept. 2014. Web.

[iii] Holland, Joshua. “Tale of Two Cities: New York Has Become the Capital of Inequality” 18 Sept. 2014. Web.

[iv] http://www.cccnewyork.org/blog/new-census-data-shows-increase-in-child-poverty-in-nyc/

[v] “Advocate: NYC’s Homeless Crisis Has Reached Historic Proportions” Fault Lines. 2015. Al Jazeera Online. 16 Sept. 2015. Web. [vi] Ibid

[vii] Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness. The Atlas of Family Homelessness in New York City. Oct. 2014 New York: Author.

[viii] Ibid

[ix] Kaufman, Greg. “America is Ignoring Homeless Families” 21. Apr. 2013.

[x] Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness. The Atlas of Family Homelessness in New York City. Oct. 2014 New York: Author.

[xi]Rafferty, Yvonne, and Marybeth Shinn. “The Impact of Homelessness on Children” American Psychologist 46.11 (1991): 1170-1179. Web.

[xii]Goodman, Lisa A., Leonard Saxe, and Mary Harvey. “Homelessness as Psychological Trauma: Broadening Perspectives.” American Psychologist 46.11 (1991): 1219-1225. Web.

[xiii] Doorwaysva.org, “Impact of Homelessness on Children | Doorways for Women and Families.” N.P., 2015. 2 Oct. 2015. Web.

[xiv] Hart-Shegos, Ellen. Homelessness and Its Effects on Children. 1st ed. Family Housing Fund, 1999. 2 Oct. 2015. Web.

[xv] Stiglitz, Joseph. “Inequality and the American Child” 30 Dec. 2014. Web.

[xvi] OCFS: Office of Children and Family Services, “New York State’s FY 2010-2014 Final Report and FY 2015-2019 Child and Family Services Plan,” June 2014.

[xvii] NYU: Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Policy. The Wagner Review. “Working and Homeless: A Paradoxical Reality for Many New York Families” 30 Apr. 2015. New York: Author.

[xviii] “Advocate: NYC’s Homeless Crisis Has ‘Reached Historic Proportions” Fault Lines. 2015. Al Jazeera Online. 16 Sept. 2015. Web.

[xiv] Navarro, Mireya. “In New York, Having a Job or 2, Doesn’t Mean Having a Home” New York Times 17 Sept. 2013. Web.

[xx] Ibid [xxi] Tempey, Nathan. “Inside the Notoriously Privately Run Homeless Shelter That Costs the City Millions” The Gothamist 14 Jul. 2015. Web.

[xxii] Hart-Shegos, Ellen. Homelessness and Its Effects on Children. 1st ed. Family Housing Fund, 1999. 2 Oct. 2015. Web.

[xxiii] Smith, Greg. “City Spent $241 Million Housing Homeless Families in Hellholes” New York Daily News 2 Oct. 2015. Web.

[xxiv]Monn, Amy et al. Risk and Resilience In Homeless Children. 1st ed. St. Paul: University of Minnesota, 2014. 3 Oct. 2015. Web.

[xxv] Protecting the Mental Health of Homeless Children & Youth. HCH Clinicians’ Network, “Healing Hands” Vol. 4, No. 1. Feb. 2000.

[xxvi] Homes for the Homeless and The Institute for Children and Poverty. (1999) Homeless in America: A Children's Story, Part One. New York, NY: Homes for the Homeless and The Institute for Children and Poverty.

[xxvii] Bassuk, EL et al, 1996; National Center on Family Homelessness. (1999). Homeless Children: America’s New Outcasts.Newton, MA; Bassuk et al, 1997; Buckner, J et al (2004). Exposure to violence and low-income children’s mental health: Directed, moderated, and mediated relations. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 65(4): 413-423. [xxviii] Osofsky, JD. (1997). Children in a Violent Society. New York: The Guilford Press; Kilpatrick et al. (1997). The Prevalence and Consequences of Childhood Victimization. National Institute of Justice Research Preview; Finkelhor, D. (1995).