About the Save Homes Fund

An Upstream Intervention to Prevent Homelessness

The Partnership To End Homelessness has been serving New Yorkers experiencing, at risk of and recovering from homelessness for almost 40 years. Our mission is to end homelessness by preventing it. We do this work via an array of housing, crisis, health and education programming designed to ensure people can keep their homes.

Current Need and Picture of New York City (NYC) Homelessness

NYC homelessness primarily hurts women and children of color who are disproportionately impacted by evictions, domestic violence and overcrowding in a city with an insufficient supply of affordable housing:

• More than two-thirds of the shelter population is comprised of families, 90%+ of which are headed by women, and 95%+ of people in shelter identify as people of color.

• When a family ends up in shelter, the loss is cumulative and intergenerational, including disruptions to work and school schedules that cause less than half of children in shelter to graduate high school, placing them on a fast track to experiencing homelessness as adults with their own families.

The Role of Prevention and the Save Homes Fund

While much media focus is on street homelessness, the estimated 5,000 New Yorkers living on city streets is equivalent to one-third of the 15,000 NYC children experiencing homelessness, less than 10% of the 50,000+ New Yorkers in homeless shelters, drop-in centers and safe havens, and less than 1% of 500,000+ city residents currently living in households in rental arrears and at immediate risk of homelessness.

Prevention is the most cost-effective and humanitarian solution:

• Only a fraction of the City’s current $2.2B spending on homelessness is devoted to prevention. The estimated less than 5,000 New Yorkers experiencing street homelessness and more than 60,000 New Yorkers residing in homeless shelters, are equivalent to approximately 10% of the more than half a million New Yorkers living in rent arrears and at risk of homelessness.
• The Partnership’s FY23-26 Strategy focuses all of its work on upstream interventions to step in before people lose the homes they have and end homelessness before it even begins.
• Leveraging data illustrating that for the approximate $100,000 cost of one family going into a homeless shelter, 20 families can be assisted to keep their own homes, we launched the Save Homes Fund.

The Save Homes Fund was developed by The Partnership to source private support to augment and expand our homelessness prevention services, (including rental and financial assistance, rehousing, crisis, counseling and education services). The Fund is designed to:

• Raise $12 million over three years to prevent homelessness for approximately 6,000 New Yorkers.
  • A fraction of the $252 million it would cost if they end up in the homeless shelter system.

• Serve as a model of solving homelessness that could be replicated across New York City and State.

• Support The Partnership’s full payments rental assistance model:
  • In contrast to other rental assistance models, we provide a full rental payments program (open to undocumented New Yorkers), saving clients the time and stress of cobbling together several partial payments from other entities and/or paying back loans.

• Be available to New Yorkers in need across the five boroughs, most of whom are below 30% AMI.

• Ensure timely rental arrears payments are made directly to property owners and, in some instances, small cash grants are provided to the household.

• Support mediations with property owners that secure arrears discounts and/or lease agreements and repairs.

• Facilitate clients access to The Partnership’s full range of health and well-being programming and trainings, as well as extensive referrals to ongoing work and health supports.

The organization’s homelessness prevention programming is designed with progressive evaluation that is informed by the organization’s five values (compassion, inclusion, integrity, professionalism and social justice). Evaluation tools include daily and weekly service tracking systems that monitor efficiency and timeliness of assisting clients, as well as emerging trends and evolving need, in tandem with six-month and annual follow-ups and a suite of management reporting tools (such as case conferencing and monthly, quarterly and annual reporting).

To jumpstart the Save Homes Fund and immediately propel it toward its goal of raising $12 million over three years, The Partnership’s Board is investing $1.5 million in the Fund, and the Federal Home Loan Bank, New York, a cornerstone supporter of the organization’s prevention work, is supporting the Fund for the second year in a row with an investment of a quarter of a million.

Our method of achieving our mission is by working in partnership as we believe it takes bringing together the wisdom and resources of all sectors to permanently end homelessness in NYC. Last year, our partners joined us to prevent homelessness for 10,000 New Yorkers.

You can partner with us to prevent homelessness for thousands more of our city neighbors by supporting the Save Homes Fund and availing of our Corporate Sponsorship opportunities ranging from $10,000 to $500,000.

For more information, please contact Natasha Sumpter at nsumpter@thepartnershipnyc.org or call 212.645.3444.

Thank you for your partnership to end homelessness for all New Yorkers!