Central Current reported this story with support from the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York.
A key program used to relocate Syracuse residents in substandard housing will fold later this year with no clear plan to replace it.
Catholic Charities, which ran city’s most prominent housing relocation program, did not re-apply for funding to sustain the effort, a spokeswoman confirmed to Central Current. The program will run through April.
The relocation program helped residents move from homes declared unfit to live in, including homes with lead paint.
The program’s end comes at a critical time. There is less quality and affordable housing available while homelessness in Syracuse is on the rise.
A Syracuse legislator and housing advocates said the ramifications of losing the program are disastrous. Councilor Pat Hogan, one of the council’s longest tenured councilors, called Catholic Charities’ decision to end the program “disturbing.”
“Families are going to be suffering, that is what is going to happen,” said Oceanna Fair, a member of Families for Lead Freedom Now, an organization that advocates for families living in homes with lead paint and dust.
Catholic Charities cited in a statement to Central Current a “perfect storm” of factors for why it will end the program:
- An increased demand for quality, affordable housing
- Too little quality, affordable housing
- Inadequate funding
- Expectations that Catholic Charities remedy those housing challenges
“The severe lack of affordable housing in our community, combined with insufficient funding to adequately serve these individuals, creates a situation where, despite all of our efforts, we are struggling mightily to be helpful, let alone successful,” Catholic Charities spokeswoman Kacee Shuler wrote in a statement to Central Current.
Syracuse housing advocates say despite the program’s flaws, its absence leaves a glaring void in an already overtaxed support system for tenants. The city is “exploring its options” to replace the program, a spokeswoman told Central Current in a statement.
“It couldn’t happen at a worse time,” Hogan said.
Shuler said Catholic Charities notified the city that it did not plan to re-apply for its funding through the CDBG program on Oct. 5 and again Oct. 10 at a meeting involving local housing agencies. Applications for funding were due Oct. 27.
“We were deliberate in these communications because we wanted the City and other agencies to know our position ahead of time, rather than being caught off guard when applications were due,” Shuler said.
Catholic Charities funded its relocation effort through the city’s allocation from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant.
Any immediate fixes will not be funded through HUD’s CDBG program this year. The city cannot allocate HUD CDBG funding unless an organization applies for funding. No other organizations applied to run a similar program, a city spokeswoman said.
Catholic Charities appears to have been trying to carry out the program with less funding than in previous years. Two years ago, the city allocated more than $240,000 from its HUD funding to run the housing relocation program. Last year, Catholic Charities requested more than $380,000 to run the program.
The city ultimately allocated $188,212 for the 2023-24 funding cycle, less than half the total requested.
While the program was critical for city residents living in substandard housing, it struggled to contend with Syracuse’s lack of affordable housing.
The program’s struggles were captured in a December story by Central Current about Darlene Medley.
Catholic Charities relocated Medley and her family in 2017 from a house with a crumbling foundation to a home with lead paint. Medley refused to be relocated by Catholic Charities after the second home was found to have lead paint. Instead, she fixed up a home donated to her. In time, she plans to turn the home into a lead shelter for families displaced because of lead paint.
At the time, Fair, the anti-lead poisoning advocate, said that Medley was not the only person struggling with that problem. Fair told Central Current others were moving from “one crappy apartment to another crappy apartment with the same issues.”
In the program’s absence, Fair said families will have few options. They will either rely on at-capacity shelters or a County Department of Social Services program that helps relocate tenants to motels as they try to find a stable home. Others will take their chances in a housing environment that has seen sizable rent increases in recent years, she added.
She does see the program’s absence as an opportunity for the city to revise its strategy to relocate tenants.
Fair believes the city should require properties to have a certificate of compliance or be on the rental registry before tenants are placed. Both programs require properties be inspected and clear of all code violations before a certificate can be issued. These certificates are also periodically renewed.
To reinvent the program, the city could look at organizations operated by tenants who have faced displacement first hand, an element of personal investment some advocates see missing in city housing programs, Fair said.
Medley advocated for those who have experienced the city’s substandard housing and relocation to be part of the solution in the future.
“Who better to help families than the people that have been through it?,” Medley said. “As we walk through the door, we already know automatically how these families are feeling and what the struggle is like.”
For Fair, the city will have to rethink how the program is implemented.
“That is going to come from asking these families what they need,” she said.
There appears to be a lack of immediate remedies. At least one city employee has been referring residents who need to be relocated to organizations who can help. Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh shouted out that employee, Patty Lynch, at his State of the City address.
Hogan, too, mentioned Lynch as someone who may help in the short-term. But he also acknowledged the city would need significantly more capacity to replace Catholic Charities’ program.
“She’s awesome, but we need 25 of her,” Hogan said. “… We don’t have the resources to do something like this.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that Catholic Charities notified the city it would not re-apply for funding to run the housing relocation program in October, according to a Catholic Charities spokeswoman.
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