Note: The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is the largest public housing authority in the United States with nearly 180,000 units housing nearly 400,000 low-income individuals and families in 334 developments throughout the city.
(In SARDAA blog March 2, 2019, and IMprint in May 2019 I wrote about the New York City Housing Authority’s Permanent Exclusion policy which kept those leaving prison from finding housing in any of the NYCHA-controlled housing. This is a significant problem, usually leading to homelessness and return to prison. Some resolution was made recently as reported in the Prisoner Re-entry Institute newsletter 2-18-2020. The latest information is given here in its entirety from that.)
On January 30, 2020, City Council Speaker Cory Johnson and Councilmember Stephen Levin released their plan, Our Homelessness Crisis: The Case for Change. This 200-page report was the culmination of City Council’s interviews with a variety of stakeholders and advocates over the past year and a half to better understand and address the causes of homelessness. The report incorporated PRI’s recommendations to establish fairer exclusion and reentry policies at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The recommendations include:
Permit more individuals to remain in their apartment after arrest.
Protect families against tenancy terminations by ensuring Right to Counsel in NYCHA proceedings.
Expand eligibility and funding for the NYCHA Family Reentry Program.
Establish a best practices protocol for NYCHA home inspections following exclusion.
Increase transparency and staff training regarding the lifting and administration of exclusions.
Inform individuals of the date on which they are eligible to lift their exclusion and how to apply.
Provide annual implicit bias and cultural competency training for NYCHA staff to progressively foster a more positive climate at NYCHA, encourage staff to challenge any existing biases and recognize the dignity and self-determination of all NYCHA residents.
PRI convenes a Working Group on NYCHA Permanent Exclusions, a cross-section of housing, legal services, and criminal justice organizations advocating for an end to NYCHA’s practice of evicting and excluding residents who come into contact with the criminal legal system.
For more information about PRI's policy work, contact Zoë Johnson, Policy Coordinator, at zjohnson@jjay.cuny.edu or 212.621.3741.