#supportive-housing

#supportive-housing

Nurse Julianne Vidal takes vitals for Brandon Radford, 80, in his room at Oak Days, a permanent supportive housing program in a former hotel in Oakland, on May 22, 2024. Advocates for people experiencing homelessness fear this kind of housing could lose funding under federal guidelines released this month. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

The idea is simple, and supported by decades of research and data: It's almost impossible to address addiction issues if you're living on the streets. Requiring total sobriety as a condition of housing just makes the homeless crisis worse. As Dorsey freely admits, many people facing addiction issues relapse, and require multiple efforts to reach sobriety. That's much easier to handle when you have a roof over your head.

"If you know you need to get off of and away from drugs, you shouldn't be forced into housing where drug use is allowed and where recovery is not supported," he said. "Some folks won't go into housing because they know that it actually is dangerous for them because they're still experiencing an addiction. ... This isn't about having zero tolerance to drug use. It's about having environments where recovery is explicitly supported, and that is the goal."

He was a perfect example of what health officials have long called "frequent flyers": patients, usually homeless, who visit the emergency department or get admitted to hospital an inordinate number of times. When Dr. Andrew Boozary and his team at Toronto's University Health Network looked deeper into the issue, they discovered that about 100 patients accounted for more than 4,500 emergency department visits in one year.

Detectives have launched a murder investigation into the death of a man in his 40s who was found with blunt force trauma to the head on Monday morning inside a DUMBO apartment building that is comprised largely of supportive housing. Officers from the 84th Precinct responded at approximately 5:52 a.m. on Aug. 25 to a 911 call reporting an unconscious and unresponsive man inside an apartment at 90 Sands St., finding the victim with trauma to the head. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.

Ryan Palmer described his feelings about finding a new home at Vantaggio Suites, expressing relief: 'Finally, I could breathe,' after years of living in unsafe hotels.

This is the exact kind of project I wish we saw all the time on this commission because it's an incredible project for a great group.

The Adams administration aims to revamp supportive housing initiatives, creating nearly 6,000 additional congregate apartments by 2028, focusing on on-site health and social services.