Advocates for homeless say they need local data

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Lennel Jacobs stood at the front of the line. He was hungry, and wasn’t sure what was taking so long. 

Jacobs had come for lunch at Part of the Solution, or POTS, a safety-net organization on the edge of the Jerome Park neighborhood in the North Bronx offering a host of resources — everything from free meals, to a supermarket-style food pantry, to help finding a job, among other things — all for low-income people and their families. 

The line was growing, stretching down Webster Avenue. And on that blustery, gray afternoon Jacobs was more concerned with getting a hot meal than with talking about why so many in the borough teeter on the edge of homelessness. That he could sum up in a few words.

“We don’t get no help,” Jacobs said. “I need 50 cents.”

POTS’ dining room serves an average of 425 meals each day, seven days a week, according to the group’s interim executive director, Christina Hanson. 

The food pantry, meanwhile, serves about 2,500 meals a day every day except Sunday. Inside, Adam Blanco — who’s worked at POTS going on two years — pushed a hand truck stacked with boxes and crates of produce like bananas and cabbage. Elba Davila, a volunteer for the past five years, dug into a plate of plantains, yucca, sweet potato, onions and cod fish, drizzled with olive oil. 

Fresh fruit — blueberries, grapes — rested on shelves in the middle of the food pantry. Against one wall: oats, beans, pasta and grains. And in a large fridge, bags of carrots.

Outside the dining room, Jacobs — in gray sweatpants, tan boots and a well-worn black jacket — is a regular at POTS.

“If I had 50 cents for every time I came here,” he said, “I’d be rich.”

He’s not homeless, though, taking up refuge in veterans housing nearby.

“This helps me make it through the month,” Jacobs said. “They should have this program all over the city.” 

As homelessness continues to plague this part of the Bronx and the rest of the city, POTS helps fight it. 

Still, just 8 percent of clients darkening the group’s doorstep are homeless, Hanson said — living either in a shelter or on the street.

But figuring out the underlying causes in places like Marble Hill and Kingsbridge continue to elude members of Community Board 8’s housing committee. 

They spoke with Nicole Jordan, the borough’s liaison for the city’s homeless services department at a recent meeting trying to nail down specific factors driving homelessness in their district.

And they still haven’t found the answer they’re seeking.

“DHS seems to believe that the underlying reasons are the same across the entire city,” said Steven Sarao, chair of CB8’s housing committee. “I asked them if they had information specific to our area that would support that conclusion, and they didn’t supply that information.”

DHS did not return multiple requests for comment.

But Sarao’s committee isn’t the only one concerned, especially since homelessness is relevant to multiple CB8 committees including aging, health and hospitals, and public safety.

“Our councilman seems to be asking the same question because we care,” Sarao said of Andrew Cohen. “We understand the full needs of the community, and we want to do what we can to assist. This is not something we should be asked to guess at. Each and every neighborhood is distinct, and what might possibly solve this problem in one neighborhood might not necessarily solve it in another.”

Yet providing those answers isn’t as simple as it sounds, Jordan said. 

In fact, going into that level of detail could compromise people’s privacy. 

But CB8 has stressed time and again it has no interest in private data or other protected information. Instead, Sarao said, it’s seeking basic, quantitative evidence so it can better focus efforts to alleviate homelessness in the community.

“It’s important for the community to have a sense as to whether homelessness is increasing or decreasing in a particular area,” Sarao said. “That’s the only way we can gauge our success in any of the programs we’re providing.”

The issue comes down to transparency and accountability, Sarao said, adding he’ll continue to press the homeless services department for empirical information specific to CB8’s district.

“We live in a very technology-based time, and communities and neighborhoods should be able to benefit from that,” Sarao said. “It’s how we make our best decisions.”

While there’s no simple answer to what drives homelessness in Marble Hill, Kingsbridge or other Bronx neighborhoods, astronomically high rents are certainly a major factor.

“Rents are going up everywhere, and in some cases, people can’t keep up,” Hanson said, because wages aren’t rising at the same rate. “In our client population, we’ve seen people double up and triple up in houses to be able to afford rent.” 

And even with rent stabilization and raising minimum wage, Hanson said, too many people still struggle to make ends meet month to month.

The majority of POTS’s clients pour more than half of their income into rent, Hanson said, making them severely rent-burdened — well beyond the 30 percent considered to be just burdened. 

“I routinely see people paying 80 percent of their income in rent,” Hanson said. “It’s not uncommon and it’s kind of shocking.”

Many of POTS’s clients earn too little to enter affordable housing lotteries.

“A lot of housing advocates are frustrated by that,” Hanson said. “It’s designed to be affordable mostly, I’d say, for people who qualify as middle class,” or lower-middle class.

“Really, the only thing available to people at this level is public housing,” Hanson added. “But that also has extremely long waiting lists.”

While there’s no easy solution, Hanson said, the outlook is not as bleak as it may seem.

“People are very resourceful and they’re good at figuring out how to make it work,” Hanson said. 

“They don’t just lie still. They use all the resources available to them.”

And if anyone is a testament to that, it’s Jacobs.

“I get lucky,” Jacobs said. “I ask. The Bible says, you ask, you shall receive. A closed mouth don’t get fed. You gotta ask.”

Homelessness, Part of the Solution, Lennel Jacobs, Christina Hanson, Adam Blanco, Elba Davila, Nicole Jordan, DHS, Community Board 8, housing committee, Steven Sarao, Zak Kostro

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