Housing and Services, Inc.: Ending Homelessness in New York City

There are currently over 52,000 men, women, and children in emergency shelters and thousands more living on the streets in New York City. Housing and Services, Inc. (HSI) aims to fix that through safe and clean permanent housing with comprehensive on-site services, which is proven to be the most humane and cost-effective solution to homelessness.

For more than 25 years, HSI has been developing and providing permanent supportive housing throughout NYC. The non-profit began as a demonstration project of the Vera Institute of Justice in the 1980s. Its first supportive housing program is the Cecil Hotel, which opened in 1988 with nearly 90 units for homeless men and women exiting the NYC shelter system.

Following the AIDS epidemic, HSI built one of the city's first dedicated nursing facilities for individuals with the virus. More units were needed, so HSI opened the Narragansett in 1994. Located in the Upper West Side, it is a 100-unit mixed-use building that caters to people living with AIDS as well as low and middle-income households.

Over the next decade, HSI shared its financing, development, and project management expertise with other non-profits and established more than 2,000 units of low-income and special needs homes in 17 projects across the Tri-State area. In 1996, the organization was asked to take ownership of the 327-unit Kenmore Hall, which had been seized by the federal government. HSI refurbished the facility and opened it to low-income, special needs New Yorkers. The program won the 1999 Best Practices Award from HUD and was a finalist for the Fannie Mae Foundation Maxwell Award for Excellence.

HSI continuously looks to meet the current and emerging needs of the homeless in New York City. Its housing first, harm reduction approach is person-centered and outcome-oriented, with an objective to keep its tenants housed and living as independently as possible. HSI takes pride in the fact that 95 percent of the individuals and families who enter its permanent supportive programs do not return to the shelter system.