Berg sees housing as the foundation of stability. “It’s the first step to stabilizing a family. Once you’re homeless, everything starts to fall apart. How do you hold a job? Maybe you can’t fix your car. You skimp on food. Maybe you can’t afford your kids’ prescriptions. Without a security deposit, you can’t get into a new place. But long-term help is less and less available. And yet Section 8 ultimately saves money.”
Section 8, the federal program which provides rental assistance to low-income people, is in the political crosshairs. “At the federal level, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” RUPCO’s (Rural Ulster Preservation Company, an organization that provides housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income individuals) Kevin O’Connor said. “And what do the efforts to reduce the deficit mean? It’s really important as the population of seniors and disabled in the region continues to grow.”
As a report released this year by Pattern for Progress’s Center for Housing Solutions confirmed, the Hudson Valley’s population of people over 65 is expected to jump more than 43 percent through the year 2030, an increase of about 145,000 people. “There’s a real need to look at our housing stock and prepare for that boom,” O’Connor said. “But right now RUPCO just doesn’t have enough emergency assistance dollars.”
The strategic plan RUPCO adopted last year showed the need to pursue funding beyond grants toward a fee-for-services structure. “Family housing is harder to come by, and we clearly recognize a pretty severe increase in the number of seniors in the near future,” said O’Connor. “We’re working to find ways to help seniors age in place.”
Funding cut by every funder
Society’s most vulnerable are the ones who rely most heavily on social-service organizations. At the Resource Center for Accessible Living (RCAL) in Kingston, Sue Hogar, chief executive officer, said her organization struggles to apply a band-aid where it can. She described RCAL as the place of last resort for people with disabilities.
“We get a lot of desperation calls,” she said. “But our funding’s been cut by every funder. So if someone’s power wheelchair dies, rather than try to get them a new one we’ll figure out a way to get them new batteries.”
Those batteries cost $80 each, and a power chair takes two. “If someone needs them,” said Hogar, “we’ll either arrange a way for them to pay for the batteries over time, or we’ll make them an outright gift. It’s still a huge savings over a new chair.”
Hogar senses “a tremendous sense of despair.” “People aren’t seeing any one area of their lives that is stable — house, job, income, health,” she said. “They feel like they just don’t have any options. Organizations like ours, we’re doing stopgap measures, doing as much as we can with what little we have.”
Another possible answer is the public-private partnership. Rik Flynn, president of UlsterCorps, said his organization’s experience with Prestige Toyota in Kingston may be a model for helping non-profits find the essential funding.
“Prestige offered UlsterCorps a $2500 grant to fund its outreach and response related to last year’s storms,” he said. “And then they got us a matching corporate grant from Toyota. When we hold our next service summit [the organization’s annual idea-sharing event, open to all area non-profits], I’m hoping we can get Prestige to come discuss how these kinds of partnerships can make a difference.”
Prestige has invited him in to explain to employees the volunteer opportunities that exist in the area. “They’re not demanding their employees participate,” Flynn explained. “They introduced me as someone who could tell them where their help is needed if they want to help out.”
UlsterCorps’ strength has been in mobilizing volunteers, posting opportunities on its website, and acting as a hub which helps organizations work with each other to avoid duplication of efforts. “One thing we’re very excited about is the creation of the U-Team,” Flynn said. “We’re looking for people who will be the face of UlsterCorps, the first responders.”
A small core of volunteers has already been put to work after Hurricane Sandy. A people-driven movement called Occupy Sandy has utilized the nimble organization created by Occupy Wall Street to become one of the most effective relief organizations on the ground in the wake of the storm.
Cahill said the overstrained social-services situation require a look at the reasons for the growing need. We’re not losing poor people in this economy, he contended, we’re losing middle-class people. “We have to stop transferring wealth from working people to wealthy people, and we have an obligation to stop, inasmuch as we are the cause.”
Cahill points to tax policy and labor policies that favor the wealthy and place an undue burden on the middle class. “We have to also make an outright investment in our citizens,” Cahill concluded. “I got an education I absolutely could not afford because of a series of grants and loans. And two years out of law school, I was a payer, not a payee. That’s how you build a strong economy — develop a skilled working population.”
-Susan Barnett
For more insight into the local economy, go to Ulster Publishing’s hudsonvalleybusinessreview.com.
