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[T] People v. Ventura5/6/2004
inspections document serious deficiencies in the quality of shelter that is provided those seeking emergency housing. This report summarizes those deficiencies and suggests some remedial measures.
When asked to place a qualified homeless family or individual in emergency shelter, the Department of Social Services uses an informal search pattern. First, it seeks to place the client, if time permits, through a real estate broker to whom it refers the client. For this purpose, the Department maintains a list of real estate brokers who work with the Department. If a room, apartment or house is available that day, the homeless client is moved in and a standard fee, a month's rent, paid to the real estate broker who obtained the housing.
If no broker has space available for the client, or placement must be made more immediately, the Department of Social Services will pay a friend or relative of the client to let the family or individual live with them as boarders. If the client can suggest such a friend or relative, the rent is then negotiated by the Housing Unit with the client's friend. The Housing Unit claims it can solve the majority of its emergency housing placements through these two types of arrangements.
When the client's search to find private housing fails, the Housing Unit turns to the use of boarding homes, and infrequently to motels.
Two boarding facilities which accept individuals on a temporary basis are noted for their high quality and standards: Bethany House, which accepts only women and children, and St. Anthony's, for men. These are religiously affiliated, single sex boarding houses. They are, however, small in size and cannot meet the needs of many of the more difficult to place homeless (e.g., known house wreckers, assaultive personalities, drug addicts, alcoholics, psychiatric out-patients, etc.) These individuals must be placed elsewhere.
In the course of our investigation, we examined a Housing Unit list of nine other boarding homes which receive direct referrals from the Department of Social Services. We inspected each house accepting multiple boarders on a single room occupancy basis (S.R.O.) and interviewed boarders placed there by the Department of Social Services.
Our observations concerning each of the boarding houses used by the Department of Social Services follow:
75 Marvin Avenue, Village of Hempstead
The operator of this house accepted numerous clients of the Department of Social Services in 1984 and earlier. At the time of our inspection, however, clients whom the Department of Social Services thought were living at 75 Marvin Avenue were actually being placed by the manager of the boarding house down the street in a second building at 129 Marvin Avenue.
Both buildings are owned by the same absentee landlord, who lives in California. Both buildings are also managed by the same landlady/manager.
The difference in the structures is that 129 Marvin Avenue is a rat and roach infested building, with broken and boarded up windows and walls, with grossly insufficient and broken plumbing, backed up sewage and other severe structural defects. The rear basement door has been torn off, and the house is open to weather and other intrusions. Large and dangerous debris and abandoned automobile wrecks were scattered around the yard. In this house, fourteen separate people were required to live in four bedrooms, with as many as four persons to a small room. One man was placed in the attic.
75 Marvin Avenue, the house which the Department of Social Services thought it was paying for, is somewhat better. Yet, it too is surrounded by its own abandoned junke
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