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[T] People v. Ventura5/6/2004
Report Concerning Nassau County Department of Social Services, Emergency Housing Placement." The evidence for the Report on the homeless was presented to the Grand Jury by the Special Investigation's Bureau of the Nassau County District Attorney's Office. My able and devoted colleagues formerly and presently from that office, Marty Bracken, Burton Ryan and William Dempsey, were responsible for this ground-breaking report. It describes in detail the illicit relationships among some real estate brokers, managing agents for rental housing, slumlords and the Department of Social Services. The cabal of illegality has added to the extensive problem of occupancy of substandard housing and multiple dwellings which were and are developed for single family occupancy. The Report stated:
Public assistance of one form or another is rendered, on an annual basis, to approximately 6,000 families and 21,000 individuals in Nassau County. The massive resources marshaled to meet those needs are illustrated by the $150,000,000 budget and 1,100 employees of the Nassau County Department of Social Services.
This report concerns itself with the Department's performance in meeting the requirements of those families and individuals who qualify for public assistance and find themselves without a home or shelter. For the most part, these people are either very recent arrivals in the County, have been evicted from their dwellings on account of fire or other calamity, or are individuals who have just been released from some psychiatric facility, hospital, jail or other institution. Where a family evicted or forced to move is not involved, those single individuals who come to the Department of Social Services seeking shelter are in great part the poorest of the poor. For them, poverty is only one facet of their personal burdens, which often also include psychiatric problems, alcoholism or drug addiction.
The Housing Unit of the Nassau County Department of Social Services is charged with the responsibility of placing persons on an emergency basis. The Housing Unit is also charged with locating facilities and providing information to clients who seek new housing but are currently sheltered.
There is no question that the housing problem is large and acute. In 1983, 1,777 persons were placed by the Department on an emergency basis. With full appreciation of the scope of the problem, intensified by the shortage of housing in the County, it must be recognized that there are serious deficiencies in the quality of the shelter provided. As a result of information received by the District Attorney's Office, we initially reviewed the procedures used by various departments of County government in enforcing Court ordered evictions - which create "homeless" individuals -and later the response of County agencies to that problem.
It is noted that, perhaps because energies and efforts are concentrated by the needs of immediate placement, few if any steps are taken when the Department receives its first notice of an impending eviction. Procedures should be developed with an eye to the possibility of placement of the client on an earlier date in an attempt to abate in some respect the crisis conditions that pervade the present placement system and result in the utilization of grossly inadequate facilities.
Our investigation was based on interviews with Department of Social Services employees, supervisors, attorneys, former employees, Nassau County Deputy Sheriffs, Court personnel, landlords, boarding home operations, Town and Village officials, as well as Department of Social Services clients and attorneys who represent welfare clients and the homeless. That investigation and our own on-site
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