County focuses on homelessness

3/23/2023

By Patsy Nicosia

How big is Schoharie County’s homelessness problem and how much are we spending to deal with it?
That’s the question that kicked off Monday’s first meeting of supervisors’ Homeless Strategy Committee.
But the real question came at the end:
“How do we create a better future? How do we take care of our community?”
That’s what Seward Supervisor Earlin Rosa asked representatives from Social Services, Community Services, the Office for the Aging, Cobleskill Regional Hospital and others to focus on as they begin to explore whether the old jail can be turned into emergency housing with wrap-round services.
Friday, supervisors agreed to hire GPI Engineers for a feasibility study (see related story in this week’s Times-Journal), but first, Mr. Rosa said, they need to get a handle of how big the problem is and figure out:
• What are the county and any other agencies like SCAAP and Catholic Charities spending on homelessness issues?
• How fast are homelessness numbers expected to grow?
• Broken down, what are its causes? Job loss? Addiction? Mental health?
• And most of all, considering the county already owns the old jail in the Village of Schoharie, is that the place for some sort of shelter?
And if not, where?
DSS Commissioner Donna Becker gave some insight into her agency’s numbers—33 homeless individuals since January.
That number doesn’t include figures from other agencies, she said, and only five people DSS referred to the Warnerville Warming Center went; the rest who went there were referred by places like the Sheriff’s Office or Catholic Charities.
“Where do they go? We don’t know. People sleep in garages, cars, sheds…in the warm weather, tents,” Ms. Becker said.
The homeless used to be able to take temporary refuge in stores like Wal-Mart and Price Chopper that were open 24/7—they no longer are—and sometimes, they showed up in the hospital Emergency Room, she said.
Even defining homelessness is difficult, OFA Director Nancy Dingee pointed out: “couch surfing,” isn’t considered homelessness.
All of this, DSS Deputy Commissioner Steve Munford said, “is the idea behind ‘housing first’. Get people into housing, then work on other things; why they’re there.”
Members of the Homelessness Committee see the 80,000 square-foot old jail as a place to do just that: offer emergency housing and wrap-around services, including counseling, basic job training, maybe even medical clinics and kennels for people who won’t go into shelters if it means leaving behind their pets.
“That’s really the vision,” Mr. Rosa said. “Come in the back door broken, go out the front door skilled.”
Maintaining the old jail costs an estimated $75,000-$85,000 a year.
Housing and transportation for the homeless adds on another $1 million.
Again, Mr. Rosa said, if they can get state funding to convert the facility, it could save $10 million over 10 years “and pay for itself.”
There’s also a side economic benefit in that hotels being used as homeless housing now could actually be used for their intended use: tourists.
Other pieces of the homelessness puzzle include the need for transitional and affordable housing.
The GPI feasibility study could be back by mid-May; in the meantime the Homelessness Committee plans to expand its “net” and meet back in Schoharie April 10 at 5pm.