Cities Must Attack Homelessness To Get State Aid, Cuomo Says

ALBANY, NY — Municipalities across New York must prove they're effectively getting homeless people off the streets if they want state aid, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.

Each local social services agency will have to submit to the state a plan outlining how its staff reaches out to homeless people who aren't housed in shelters. The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance will also require local agencies to work with nonprofit groups that provide homeless services in developing those plans.

The state will withhold social services funding from municipalities whose plans aren't up to snuff, Cuomo said during his State of the State speech in Albany. The standards will also apply to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and other state transit agencies.

Cuomo, a Democrat seeking re-election this year, said it is the state's moral imperative to ensure governments are addressing street homelessness, a problem he said too many people accept as inevitable. The governor said he's "old enough to remember that at one time there were no homeless people on the streets."

"It has become part of our new normal but it is abnormal, and it is wrong," Cuomo said. "We must remember that while we aggressively protect individual civil liberties, we help people in need."

Cuomo's initiative could be read as a subtle dig at Mayor Bill de Blasio, the governor's political nemesis. Cuomo has previously suggested that de Blasio, also a Democrat, has not adequately staunched the growth of the city's homeless population, which exceeds 76,000 people by federal officials' count.

A small proportion, about 5 percent, of those people are living on the street. The vast majority stay in shelters run by the city or private entities.

State funding accounts for about 10 percent of the city Department of Homeless Services' budget — about $144.3 million for the current fiscal year.

Though he wasn't familiar with the details of Cuomo's plan, de Blasio expressed confidence that it wouldn't put any of that money in jeopardy. New York City's homeless outreach program, the largest of any city in the nation, has gotten nearly 1,000 people off the streets, he said.

The mayor also called on the state to ramp up funding to help build 20,000 supportive housing units in the city

"I think any objective look at New York City's efforts in terms of street homelessness will acknowldge that this is the right direction," de Blasio told reporters in Albany after Cuomo's speech. "It needs more support, it needs more time to take hold, and we certainly want to work with the state on that."

(Lead image: A woman walks by a homeless man along a Manhattan street on Nov. 30, 2017. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)