Our Impact
In 2003, HousingPlus opened its doors to eight women who had been incarcerated and homeless and needed safe housing and assistance to re-enter the community. Handing each woman a key to her own apartment opened the door for them to stabilize their lives and reach their goals. We are known our unwavering commitment to addressing the lack of housing and services for historically underserved and marginalized NYC residents, with a special focus on women and their children. Some programs also target other vulnerable groups, including female Veterans, justice-involved women, and women with histories of mental health challenges, substance use, and other trauma.
Our impact is strong and profound—over the years, we have helped hundreds of women access the resources needed to secure safe and stable housing, become self-sufficient, and build family stability. In FY 2024, we offered permanent and transitional supportive housing to 482 persons in 246 households, across all programs. There are 231 children in our households, 158 are between the ages of 4 and 18 years. We also offered transitional housing for 97 women, non-binary and gender expansive individuals who would otherwise be detained at Rikers or other detention facilities and offer rapid rehousing to 70 households per year. And we are not stopping there, we are working to expand to nearly 500 units of permanent supportive housing by 2028.
*Growth Timeline includes both transitional and permanent supportive housing units.
A commitment to people affected by the criminal justice system.
Over the last fifteen years, HousingPlus has also developed important new programming related to creating and running alternatives to detention and incarceration.
In 2008, we opened our Drew House program, the country’s first Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) Program for families. In 2017, the NYC Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice awarded funding to a consortium of organizations led by HousingPlus for an alternative to detention pilot for 49 women. In 2019, we were able to add an additional 10 units specifically for families, bringing the total to 59. After successfully diverting 331 individuals during the pilot, HousingPlus secured a multi-year contract to expand our ATD from 59 to 159 units, including 18 for families.
By the end of 2024, we will have expanded to 159 units, allowing us to help more women, much more cost effectively than they could be held at Rikers. In addition, our program is more effective: in 2014, it was estimated that 32% of women who were discharged from Rikers were re-admitted within one year. By way of comparison, in the first two years of our operation, only 2 out of 94 women we served were re-admitted, about 2%, much fewer than were re-admitted from the population as a whole.
Cost for one year:
For one participant in
HousingPlus' ATD program
For one detainee on
Rikers Island
*Source: NYC Comptroller, 2023
Changing individual lives
HousingPlus’ impact is also evident in the lives that have been transformed. For example:
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Sophia is rebuilding her life in our alternative to incarceration program.
Originally from Trinidad, Sophia found herself in a very unfortunate situation in 2021 and was taken into custody. She was incarcerated for approximately a year. During her incarceration, she was separated from her children who at the time were 14, 10, 8 and 5-years-old. When she was released, she found herself homeless and living in a crowded shelter. Because of her lack of a stable home, she was unable to reunite with her children, who were living with their father, leading to years of separation.
After being referred to HousingPlus’ transitional housing program, a Senior Social Worker helped Sophia to work on family reunification, first through supervised and then unsupervised visits. She is now working towards shared custody and is working in childcare.
“When I was in Rikers, I thought I’d never be able to live with my children again,” says Sophia. Since moving to HousingPlus in 2022, she’s received ongoing therapy with our Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and through a weekly support group. Sophia has come a long way: “I’m grateful for HousingPlus – I don’t know where I would be if I wasn’t here.”
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Shedequa is a Marine Veteran using her lived experience to help others.
She was honorably discharged from the US Marine Corps in 2014, after serving five years, including two tours of duty, one to Afghanistan. She remembers her time in the military as bittersweet; she experienced camaraderie, but also racism. Ultimately, her service left her with a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “I was stressed, anxious, depressed,” she says. The safe, permanent home that was offered by HousingPlus allowed her to address her PTSD, get back to school and earn a Master’s in Social Work from Fordham in 2021. She now puts both her education and her lived experience to work as both a community mental health consultant and as the Chair of the Program Committee of the HousingPlus Board, which enables her to ensure that the voices of our participants are heard and heeded at the highest level of organizational planning. “I hope to use my life experiences and talents to make the world a better place.”
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Rachel is pursuing a career in social work.
Rachel is a Veteran who was housed by our Transitional Housing for Veterans program from 2015 - 2016. RMB got married after she left the transitional program and divorced some years later due to domestic violence, finding herself homeless again. She had been living in the shelter system for over two years when she returned to our permanent housing program in 2023.
With us, she was able to get her Associates Degree from Kingsborough Community College, and she is currently pursuing a Bachelors of Social Work (BSW) at City College. She has overcome many obstacles and has soared to excellence. She is currently employed as a Substance Abuse CASAC Counselor at Samaritan Daytop Village.
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