A statewide Marist poll from February found the majority of adults in New York feel housing affordability is the top issue impacting their area. And 35% of adults believe funding housing should be prioritized in the state budget.
"You need to be able to have something people can afford to start at," says Kristen Lazarony, a housing coordinator with Independent Living of the Genesee Region. "Renting an apartment shouldn't be as difficult as buying a home."
This week on the Disabilities Beat, we explore how finding affordable, accessible housing poses unique barriers for people living in rural areas of New York. We speak with advocates from Independent Living of the Genesee Region about the challenges their clients face in obtaining and maintaining stable housing, and how the state could include measures to reduce homelessness in the budget.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was created by a contractor and may be updated over time to be more accurate.
Emyle Watkins:
Hi, I'm Emyle Watkins, and this is the Disabilities Beat. Affordability is a word we're hearing a lot, especially as the US continues its war in Iran, New York attempts to wrap up its budget and state gubernatorial candidates hit the campaign trail. A statewide Marist poll from February found the majority of adults in New York feel housing affordability is the top issue impacting their area. And 35% of adults believe funding housing should be prioritized in the state budget.
Kristen Lazarony:
I think a lot of people think it's just mental health and substance abuse and it's not.
Emyle Watkins:
Kristen Lazarony is a housing coordinator with Independent Living of the Genesee Region out of Batavia. She assists homeless people in three rural counties between Buffalo and Rochester.
Kristen Lazarony:
It could be as simple as there was a loss in income. They could have lost their job, so that put them behind on rent and they were evicted. So then trying to get back into apartments with no income is a struggle.
Emyle Watkins:
A 2023 report from New York's comptroller compared 10 of New York's rural counties with the state as a whole. It found that over 10 years, while the state saw its labor force grow and jobs increase, rural counties specifically lost jobs and workers.
Kristen Lazarony:
With inflation and food, utilities, rent, you're still needing to have a job or two. And then if you're a single family, you're looking at trying to do this on your own. So if you're a single individual with kids and then needing to work two or three jobs, you still can't sustain that.
Emyle Watkins:
And for people who are experiencing mental health conditions or substance use disorder, they face heightened challenges when reentering the community.
Kristen Lazarony:
So they're starting from the ground up. So they need to come out of jail or they need to come out of a treatment center and they're placed with local department of social services. And then from there they need to gain employment and be able to sustain that rent. But it's being able to pass all the barriers along the way to gain employment if they can't, or maybe they can't work so they need to obtain social security. So there's a waiting game.
Emyle Watkins:
In fact, despite rural counties having a higher death rate from opioid overdose and higher admissions to opioid treatment programs, there are no state-certified outpatient opioid treatment programs in the 10 rural counties the comptroller studied. There's only one rural county with a crisis treatment program, only one rural county has an inpatient treatment program and only three rural counties have residential treatment. All that to say, rural New Yorkers have to travel farther for treatment. Rae Frank, the director of the independent living center, says the state needs to address the stigma around mental health and homelessness support.
Rae Frank:
We have to address the not in my backyard concerns. There have been times where individuals have been stigmatized and it's we don't want those people here. And we have to really educate the community about who our services are for and what we're offering.
Emyle Watkins:
Frank and Lazarony say the state needs to increase affordable housing units in rural areas. According to the comptroller's report, over five years, rural counties saw a 2.3% decrease in overall housing units compared to a 3.1% increase in housing units statewide.
Kristen Lazarony:
You need to be able to have something people can afford to start at. Renting an apartment shouldn't be as difficult as buying a home.
Emyle Watkins:
The Independent Living Center offers a government-funded rapid rehousing program, which allows them to pay the rent for some individuals leaving homelessness for a period of time. But Frank and Lazarony say it's even a challenge to find housing for people in that program.
Rae Frank:
We've seen rents at least double, and we do work with landlords to ask them. Sometimes we know that people are not going to be able to get utilities in their own name, so we will ask a landlord if they'll be willing to include the utilities in the rent.
Emyle Watkins:
They say that some people become homeless again after the program ends because they can't find somewhere affordable.
Rae Frank:
If there's anything that could be done in the budget to bring back the Section eight vouchers, that would be fantastic for the population we're serving because we used to be able to help them transition from our program onto a housing subsidy voucher that they would only pay a portion according to their income. And that really allowed people to move off the program and remain stable.
Emyle Watkins:
Overall, the comptroller's report found "current policies do not adequately accommodate the circumstances specific and unique to the rural perspective." Many advocates like Frank and Lazarony hope this year's budget will change that.
For more on this story, visit our website at btpm.org. I'm Emyle Watkins. Thanks for listening.
