Top 5 Reasons Folx Stay Unsheltered in NYC
There’s a right to shelter in NYC — so what’s up?
As the leader of a Shelter-ACT Team (mobile mental health treatment) in NYC I work with individuals who are on the streets, in shelters, and with any luck, eventually housed in mental health Supportive Housing. We are big believers in the Housing First model, and we don’t play any games with labeling someone who is actively using drugs or choosing not to take medications as “not housing ready”.
Get folx housed. No matter what. Right now. That’s my mantra.
There is a complete dearth of affordable housing, and supportive (mental health) housing. This is what thrusts people into being unhoused in the first place. When we get to them we are often working with individuals who will not or cannot return to shelter — and applying for supportive housing from the street is like shooting free-throws from half-court - bad odds.
More to the point — the streets are a meat grinder. Our folx are vulnerable to physical violence, deadly weather exposure, policing that criminalizes the unhoused, and lack of access to basic resources like food and bathrooms to name a few. And even when we can get them interviews, they are often denied for “lack of insight: into their mental illnesses - a revolting, ableist roadblock.
So, why go unsheltered? In no particular order, the Top 5 most common reasons I see folx remaining unsheltered in the streets despite having access to the NYC Mental Health Shelter System — such as it is.
1. Curfews: Curfews are oppressive, carceral frameworks that fail to honor the complexities of the lives of shelter residents.
Each shelter has a curfew — usually 9 or 10 PM. If you miss the curfew you lose your bed. When you get back to the shelter that may mean that the sum total of your worldly possessions have been packed into garbage bags and you will be bussed to an overflow shelter somewhere in NYC for the night. You might get there at 1 or 2 AM. You then get a cot until 6 when you will be woken up, and eventually bussed back to your assigned shelter (you know, the place that you were sleeping the night before and who has all your stuff held like garbage) where you will put your name on the bed list.
You then wait all day to see if you get assigned a bed. You may or may not have access to your possessions (including medications) throughout the day. At the end of the day if you are not assigned a bed you get bussed again.
Being bedless can and does continue for *weeks* (especially in the winter when beds are in greater demand). It’s frustrating, demeaning, dangerous, and more than some folx can bear. You have a right to a bed in NYC, but they didn’t say which bed, and you’re not promised access to your possessions if you miss curfew.
Action Items! The shelter system is not likely to change (I get it - they have to put people in beds and if you don’t show up someone else gets your bed.)
Advocate for more Safe Haven beds (with 72 hour curfews - also known as “low-barrier beds”) and support the agencies that operate them
Advocate for more housing generally to get people out of shelter faster.
2. DHS Police / Surveillance: The shelters are carceral mental health facilities with constant surveillance.
Mental Health shelters are staffed with Department of Homeless Services (DHS) police at the front door. These are quasi-police officers with scanning devices (x-ray baggage scanners, metal-detecting wands), stun guns, and batons.
For those of us who have been in prison or on work release it is very familiar. Belt off, shoes off, empty your pockets, get padded down, and shut the fuck up. Some DHS police can be reckless with their mouths, and it’s not clear to me that they’ve received anything but rudimentary training in de-escalation. Many certainly are not familiar with some of the mental health symptoms that our folx suffer with. Some DHS police demean the residents. They call them idiots, dummies, retards, and a host of other terms I’ll leave out here. Arrests are common, and there’s always the danger of catching an “assaulting a ‘peace’ officer” charge.
Additionally, these officers are much more quick to call 911 and “EDP” someone (Emotionally Disturbed Person) than a community member might be. When our folx are EDP’d they are taken — most of the time in handcuffs — to the psych ER or the CPEP for evaluation. An EDP call is traumatizing, inhumane, and a carceral reaction to what is often a de-escalatable mental health symptom. Many of our folx would rather be in the street where any audible or visible symptomology won’t turn into incarceration.
Action Items! Surveillance is on the rise, not decline. This is a tough one.
Advocate for more housing generally to get people out of shelter faster.
Contact the ACLU if you know about human rights violations and get involved.
3. Violence / Safety Threats: Shelter survival is this: a steel-cage bare-knuckles brawl inside a police station.
The shelters are violent places. There are regularly thefts, muggings, jumpings, assaults, beat-downs, rapes, and overdose deaths. Financial extortion is common, as residents who have financial support on the outside provide credit for those inside and typical interest is “double for each day late”. Our folx — already financially destitute — get swept into debt very quickly, and then are afraid to even be near the shelter.
The threat of physical violence is omnipresent and reduces people to a predator/prey dichotomy, with the live-in cops waiting to lock up both parties as soon as something goes down. “I did five years in Sing Sing and felt safer there than I do here. I feel safer on the subways.” — Dominic, 30 (as quoted in the NY Post, regarding NYC shelters).
Additionally, you can’t get a safety transfer for a non-specific threat. You have to name the person who is threatening you. It doesn’t take a genius to know that snitching in the shelter environment is a death sentence.
Action Items!
4. Lack of Dignity / Privacy: MH Shelters are congregate settings for people who often struggle in congregate settings.
It’s congregate sleeping (anywhere from 6–25 beds in a room), congregate bathrooms, congregate dining, congregate everything. Most of our folx are already not doing well. Lack of access to hygiene supplies, laundry, undergarments — really anything that you or I might take for granted — means that they are both under-resourced and crammed into a small space with other residents who are angry, frustrated, often struggling with ADLs, and who regularly spend their days (and sometimes nights) on the streets of NYC. Bedbugs, lice, soiled shower and bathroom floors — these are all frequent occurrences.
Plus, many are in fact struggling with unhelpful drug use, access to medications, and may be very unwell. There’s constant shouting and threats, and little peace. Shelters are the opposite of what folx living with a Schizophrenia, PTSD, or Major Depressive Disorder diagnosis need.
There’s nowhere to quietly go over your documentation. There nowhere to masturbate. There’s nowhere to enjoy something you saved up for and bought (like a phone) because people immediately want to take it from you. Everything you do is public. And your locker — when you can keep it locked — is no guaranteed safety. Lockers are broken into regularly by residents, and every couple of months the staff do a locker-check and if you’re not there the staff cut your lock and break in. You get back to the shelter and all of your stuff is just laying out — likely picked through by your roommates. Half of the guys I work with can’t keep an ID or social security card for more than a couple of months. And without those they can’t get housing. It’s a constant, shame-inducing cycling back and forth from shelter to HRA to SSA just to try to retrieve and secure original documentation. You are naked in this shit-storm.
Action Items!
Advocate for more housing generally to get people out of shelter faster (is this sinking in?)
Advocate for more Safe Haven beds (with 72 hour curfews - also known as “low-barrier beds”) and support the agencies that operate them.
5. Lack of Freedom / Control: The NYC Mental Health shelter system is an arm of the Prison Industrial Complex.
This might elicit the least sympathy — but it shouldn’t. Many of the folx we serve have spent many years in prisons and psychiatric inpatient facilities. They have been institutionalized beyond what most humans can bare. Many simply want the freedom of an open space — even if that means they are unsheltered.
Waiting around in fluorescent-lit windowless hallways for a case manager to tell you that any interviews for housing will be many, many months from now is discouraging and intolerable for some. When you are in the shelter there is little to no agency. And when you are given a task to handle— like trying to get a document needed for your housing package — you are often not provided with the type of support you need. Some of our participants cannot travel by themselves. Some can be intimidated and confused by the bureaucracies of HRA, DMV, and SSA. Some might not be able to tolerate the frustrations of waiting four hours in line to be told you don’t have the right form of ID to get the document. The whole process seems like it is designed to demoralize and break you.
So, some folx just say “screw it”, and I get that. Broken promises, impossible hurdles… tolerating it takes a herculean effort. These men and woman want some freedom, some life. Where the hell is their American Dream, anyway? So they walk away from the whole thing and try their luck with the streets. At least there they are their own boss for a while, and that’s not something they’ve often been given a chance to feel in their lives. The shelter is just another carceral system, and some say “nah”.
Action Items!
Advocate for more housing generally to get people out of shelter faster.
Support expansion of drop-ins and other places to get a shower and food.
Support Crisis Respite Centers and their expansion. (If you are a mental health professional - you can make a referral to the Manhattan one here!)
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So, that’s the list. I have no experience outside of NYC, and I have no experience with the non-mental health shelters (NYC calls them “employment shelters”). I also don’t know about the family shelter system. I leave comments about these systems to others.
I want to highlight that there are many kind and helpful DHS police officers who are very skilled. I know them personally and they take their responsibility to the residents seriously. I also want to celebrate the shelter social services staff and RAs. This is enormously taxing work and the pay is outrageously low. They are understaffed and also under-resourced. This is a labor of love and care for the people housed in the shelters, and I know most of the workers are absolutely doing their best with an impossible situation.
If you have thoughts please comment and let’s get the dialogue started. Everyone deserves the basic dignity of housing if they want it, and most do.
If you see someone on the street please reach out to them and see if there is something they need that you can provide. It’s not necessary that you suggest they go to a shelter. They know they have that option.
And if you’re able, support the outreach teams that are in the field in your communities — either with funds or encouragement or thanks. I will highlight the work of outreach teams in an upcoming piece.
Contact Street Outreach if someone needs support.
If someone wants to go back to shelter but doesn’t know how, click and print and give them this. (or in Spanish)
The work of mending our communities is for us all. Thank you for taking the time to read and please consider taking action. See my links page for additional resources.
