Downtown Alliance, Trinity Church, and Bowery Residents’ Committee Shepherd Local Unsheltered Persons into Housing
A partnership between the Downtown Alliance, Trinity Church, and the Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC) has succeeded in moving 130 unsheltered people off Lower Manhattan streets in the first ten months of this year.
Although the Alliance has provided homeless outreach services for more than a decade, this benchmark is a significant uptick over recent years. “Not so long ago,” reflects Alliance president Jessica Lappin, “our annual target was 40 to 50 people, then our yearly totals jumped to the mid-70s.” In 2023, the program assisted 100 people off the streets. This year’s tally, which appears likely to swell further in the remaining two months of the year, represents another jump of approximately 30 percent.
“Our partners at BRC have an impressive success rate, in spite of the fact that it can be hard to convince people who are living on the street to accept services” Ms. Lappin says. She adds, “BRC has access to a variety of settings, depending on an individual’s needs. These can include hospitals, safe-haven shelters, or traditional shelters, along with supportive or transitional housing. And a couple or a family can go to a shelter specific to their needs, rather than being separated.”
At a recent meeting of Community Board 1, Chris Gonzalez, the chief strategy officer at the City’s Department of Social Services (DSS), presented a statistical overview indicating that the unhoused population in Lower Manhattan is approximately 400 people. Using this as a benchmark, the program operated by the Alliance, Trinity, and BRC has reduced the number of local people without a place to sleep by more than 25 percent.
“This is on top of what the City is providing,” Ms. Lappin observes. “We still have challenges in terms of pushing DHS and the City to do local outreach.” She adds that the newly opened safe haven shelter at 105 Washington Street (right) “now has five residents who were formerly on the streets of Lower Manhattan.”
The Alliance first partnered with Trinity and BRC 15 years ago to serve the unhoused in Lower Manhattan, by augmenting the work of the DHS. Trinity Church participates by funding 50 percent of the program’s cost, while BRC conducts outreach, advocacy, and other services throughout the Downtown Alliance’s footprint (roughly Lower Manhattan south of Chambers Street, between the East River and West Street).
BRC is one of the City’s largest providers of housing and services for the homeless. Founded in 1971 by a group of recovering alcoholics living in poverty in the Bowery’s notorious “flophouses,” the organization serves nearly 13,000 individuals each year. Along with a broad continuum of support services (like outreach and case management, plus substance use and medical services), BRC offers more than 3,700 units of transitional and permanent housing.