Next Step Shelter Program Uses Punitive Measures

It is a Monday morning before dawn and a man in his twenties, a bag slung over his shoulder and a black beanie on his head, exits the iron gates of the Sumner Avenue Armory. The armory, a castle-like structure covering an entire city block on Marcus Garvey Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant, has been Tyrone Watson’s home for a year and a half now.

But he wants out.  He is on his way to a new job, and hopes that will be his ticket.  Watson may have a roof over his head, but he is homeless—a resident of Pamoja House, a shelter in the armory that residents and homeless activists condemn for being run more like a prison, but which also represents the debate over the difficulties of how best to help the chronically homeless.

Pamoja House is part of New York City’s Next Step shelter program. When Next Step began in 2007, the Department of Homeless Services introduced the program as a way to aid the chronically homeless who “need additional support” by offering “intensive care” and a “structured approach.”  But criticisms raise questions about whether the program is counterproductive to assisting the homeless restart their lives—stripping autonomy from those who are perpetually stuck on the fringe of society by enforcing regulations that seem more like punishments.

These regulations include having to meet with caseworkers seven days a week and attend daily life-enhancing workshops, both of which are required even of those with jobs. Residents must also leave the premises no later than 9 a.m. every day and return no later than 8 p.m. And even though passes are given to those who have jobs or school schedules that go past 8 p.m., residents must call their caseworkers each afternoon to renew them. And unlike other shelters, there are few amenities for relaxation, such as television.

“This place is supposed to help you get back on your feet, but it doesn’t do that,” Watson said while on his way to his job in a nursing home.

Before coming to Pamoja House, he stayed at the Palace Employment Shelter, a typical working shelter on the Bowery. The two do not compare, he said. While the Palace tries to help residents stay on their feet for the long-term, Next Step pushes too fast, Watson said.

Watson has had to two stints at Pamoja House. When he moved into Pamoja House the first time, he got a seasonal job. The staff urged him to find housing, according to him, which he did. The job ended and he was back in the shelter.

“I couldn’t maintain the place after the seasonal job ran out,” he said. “But they still pushed me to find a place.”

The DHS and Pamoja House did not respond to numerous calls and emails requesting an interview and permission for a reporter to see inside the house itself. But the argument in favor of the Next Step program is that it provides more direction to those who either did not or could not take advantage of the more autonomous and open programs at other shelters, such as the Palace, according to Muzzy Rosenblatt, the executive director for the Bowery Residents’ Committee, which runs the Palace.

But there are questions over whether that type of care, regardless of the circumstances, is anathema to increasing the opportunities of the homeless.

“The Next Step model was developed as a punitive model where there are fewer amenities, fewer concessions,” said Patrick Markee, the spokesman for the Coalition for the Homeless. “We have found that it is not an effective model at all.”

Some people, however, could argue that Watson could be seen as an impending success story. Formerly a client at the Palace, he has found employment since he has come to Pamoja House and is attempting to find a new place to live.

But Watson said he found this job without the help of caseworkers and he wants to make sure his employment is stable before letting Pamoja House push him out.

“My applications are still sitting in my folder,” he said. “The staff is not helpful.”

What’s more is that Watson’s criticism of Pamoja House appears to be representative of the entire Next Step program.

“The quality is basic. The restrictions are petty, stupid stuff,” Markee said.

Some of those restrictions are the lack of cable, no visitors allowed in the room, limited recreation, daily health and safety inspections and residents must sign in with a supervisor each night, according to the Next Step handbook.

Plus, according to Pamoja House regulations, clients should become “independent productive citizens within 90 days.” Because of this regulation, some complain that caseworkers force residents to find housing before they are ready. They often cannot sustain their rent and are forced back into the shelter.

Jerry Velasquez, a middle-aged man who also lives in Pamoja House, had a similar situation—only more compressed.

“I was there three weeks the first time and they rushed me out,” Velasquez said. “I got laid off [from his new job] and had to come back.”

He is at three weeks again.

The justification for the harsher rules—such as an 8 p.m. curfew and more intensive interactions with caseworkers—is that those who are put in the Next Step program are there because they did not take advantage of the programs at other shelters, according to Rosenblatt.

The more structured programs, though, may not do anything more than alienate participants. Some experts say that unless these programs work to provide stable, affordable long-term housing to those who need it most—the ones targeted by New Step—they are not truly helping the homeless in their care.

“Advocates have been very concerned about a variety of life-training programs that fail to acknowledge the city’s failure to provide housing,” said Dr. Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College who has studied homelessness.

Rosenblatt agrees that better housing needs to be available in the city, but that does not mean the shelter programs are ineffective, he says.

He said that, in the end, the Next Step program is for those who are often unmotivated to utilize the services that are available at shelters like the Palace and need more structure. “It’s not surprising that when they end up there, they complain. It’s taking the tough approach.”

He says that the Next Step shelters are generally effective and meant to give direction to those who need it—much like afterschool tutoring.

“You can’t stop the whole class for one student,” he said.

Markee, however, said that the shelters often move people to the Next Step shelters when they simply do not want to deal with them.

Either way, the transferring of the homeless from shelter to shelter often hinges on the ability of the assessment shelters to determine to which program a certain individual belongs.

Upon entering the homeless system, clients—as the city calls them—must be evaluated so they can be placed into an appropriate shelter: one that focuses on alcohol abuse, mental illness, or job training. But with the homeless population in New York City higher than ever at more than 41,000 people and continual cuts DHS’ budget, there is a strain on the shelters, according to the Executive Director of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing, Marc Greenberg.

There are accounts from Greenberg, Markee, Rosenblatt and those within Pamoja House that suggest the assessment system often misdiagnoses clients. The dispute is over who is at fault.

“Generally speaking, the assessment system is effective,” Rosenblatt said. “The assessment can only be as accurate as a person is willing to open up.”

Markee countered by highlighting the diagnosing of the mentally ill. “There is not a comprehensive system for evaluating for mental health,” he said. “That really speaks to the system’s failings. … The city claims there are no mentally ill people in the Next Step shelters, but that is not true.”

Vitale went a step further by saying that another reason people are placed in the wrong shelter is that there is a lack of available space.

“Over the last 40 years,” he said, “Demand for services have gone up while resources have continued to decrease.”

Pamoja House, which is run through a private organization called the Black Veterans for Social Justice, is supposed to be for mentally and physically capable adult men. But the view from inside seems to support Markee and Vitale.

“You don’t feel safe in there,” said a 26-year-old Pamoja House resident named Daniel, who wants to one day become a mechanic. “There are people in there that are legally insane. You can tell. Society has given up on them.” Daniel refused to give his last name because of the stigma attached to the homeless population.

The belief that the city places the mentally ill, as well as drug abusers, into Pamoja House is shared among some residents of the community as well.

According to city contracts, BVSJ has operated Pamoja house since 2007, about the time the Next Step Program began. (This past summer the city renewed BVSJ’s contract for about $4 million.) Before that, the shelter was more akin to the shelters like the Palace, according to Long-time Bed-Stuy resident Annette Webber-Townsend.

Within the last couple of years, she said, she has noticed more mentally ill people and drug abusers in the neighborhood’s parks and streets. She attributes it to the shelter.

“They are bringing in people who are not capable of working and are mentally ill or on drugs,” she said. “They have nothing to do during the day and crime is worse.”

According to the 81st Precinct’s crime statistics, crime has increased about 2.5 percent this year and more than 13 percent over the past two years. It is unclear, however, how the shelter has affected crime in the immediate area.

“I think there is a misunderstanding about who is in the shelter,” said Henry Butler, the chair of Community Board 3, which comprises Bed-Stuy. “I haven’t seen anything.”

Webber-Townsends’s argument about shelter residents having nothing to do during the day is pointed. All residents must leave the shelter by 9 a.m.—regardless of whether a person is unemployed, has the day off or is simply enjoying the weekend.

“I should be able to sleep in on my day off,” Watson said. “But they don’t allow it.”

That is one of the “punitive” measures Markee mentioned. Residents also complain, though, about dirty bed sheets and portions of food that are too small. Watson noted a dinner consisting of a frank and two juices; Velasquez usually goes to a corner store for breakfast because oatmeal and two juices is not enough.

“It’s not a shelter,” Velasquez said. “It’s a prison.”

 

For related story see: City’s Transitional Housing for Homeless Lacks Oversight

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