Opinion: How 800 Homes in Desirable Communities Could Disrupt a System-to -Homelessness Pipeline

A stable and safe home can bend the arc of their lives empowering them to secure steady employment and earn money and save These homes represent opportunities to break the cycles of poverty A rendering of The Eliza in Inwood which the author says can be a model for housing projects open to foster youth Photo courtesy of The Children s Village Every year hundreds of young people in New York age out of the foster care system with nowhere to go After experiencing the trauma of family separation navigating the complexities of the system and never getting the family the system promised them they now face a daunting housing sphere with scant guidance and little aid The numbers are alarming Nearly one-third of the young people who aged out of foster care in New York City in remained in this expensive impersonal system past age absolutely because they had no housing option Nationally up to percent of former foster youth experience homelessness before the age of This isn t just a housing shortage it s a protocol failure New York s elected bureaucrats housing developers mission-driven investors and social system providers must act now Without stable housing these young people face insurmountable blockades to training and employment trapping them in cycles of intergenerational poverty The Children s Village in partnership with youth advocates and affordable housing developers created a blueprint to end this cycle The account Housing Justice for Young People Aging Out of Foster Care in New York City offers a five-year plan to create new homes for youth exiting foster care enough to effectively eliminate the foster care-to-homelessness pipeline in our city The summary was coauthored by The Center for Fair Futures HR A Advisers and Good River Partners The review is powerful because it was shaped by those who grew up in foster care These youth leaders who struggled to find housing after leaving foster care established a housing justice standard that guided our approach They didn t just identify the concern they helped design the cure They reminded us that the vast majority percent of affordable housing continues to be built in our bulk burdened and racially segregated communities And they urged us to break away this history of segregation by giving them the opportunity to experience the safety and joys of integration At The Children s Village we value their perspective We know that living in a beautiful home that is affordable and located in a desirable neighborhood that I would choose to live in is a event changer The research is clear where you live and where your children go to school is the greater part powerful predictor of second generation success in the United States Yes it is location location and location We tested this hypothesis of integration by building housing in integrated desirable neighborhoods and the results are overwhelming Everyone does better when we learn to live together This is true of all our housing developments including our majority newest success The Eliza a -story rise in the racially integrated neighborhood of Inwood that is available to all including youth exiting foster care It illustrates what is manageable when we turn approach into progress when nonprofits investors and ruling body agencies collaborate and fight to realize the promise of integration Yet The Eliza also highlights the limitations of our current approach it is laborious to do it takes too long and we are not building enough of these desirable homes This review calls for innovative funding and protocol changes to incentivize projects similar to The Eliza and a Home for Harlem Dowling to secure new units for youth exiting foster care To construct these beautiful integrated desirable homes we recommend blending private capital with mission-driven capital through a Fair Futures Housing Fund This fund would mitigate risks and offset revenue limitations for investors offering returns of - percent This will accelerate the construction of new homes these young people urgently need We would also propose policies to leverage existing housing located in desirable communities including the expanded use of master rental subsidy agreements MRSAs These arrangements allow nonprofits to work with landlords to bank apartments for voucher-holders including young people aging out of care Additionally we recommend loosening restrictions on city housing vouchers making them transferable to nearby states and creating a centralized hub with the city s Administration for Children s Services for young people to access housing assistance By constructing new affordable housing leveraging existing housing and simplifying the housing search we can end the foster care-to-homelessness pipeline and provide just quality housing in desirable neighborhoods for youth exiting the foster care system A stable and safe home can bend the arc of their lives empowering them to secure steady employment and earn money and save These homes represent opportunities to break the cycles of poverty The resolution is within our reach To our elected representatives housing developers investors and fellow utility providers the blueprint is here We can act now to end this intergenerational situation Jeremy Kohomban is the president and CEO of The Children s Village The post Opinion How Homes in Desirable Communities Could Disrupt a System-to -Homelessness Pipeline appeared first on City Limits