The surge in homelessness

With the slated closing of Project Haven this month, six shelters and 80 beds will no longer be available for Rochester’s unhoused community, exacerbating an ongoing crisis.

“Project Haven has remained open with the support of our real estate and service partners,” Reach Advocacy, the agency that manages Project Haven, announced in its March newsletter. “However, inadequate funding makes it more difficult than ever to meet our payroll and bills that have escalated since the beginning.”

Project Haven was funded by Monroe County’s Department of Human Services. The county has paid more than $2.1 million to Reach since the start of its relationship in 2023, says Steve Barz, a Monroe County spokesperson, and has helped to keep it running with a custom plan. 

Project Haven’s impending closure comes a few months after a sweep on Marshall Street removed an unhoused encampment. While it was conducted in compliance with Code Blue policies, which offer free transportation to warming centers and shelters, residents elected against the shelter placement and assistance altogether, leaving them on the street.

“They’re choosing the option that’s available to them,” says Amy D’Amico, an organizer at Rochester Grants Pass Resistance, an advocacy group that became more vocal after the Marshall Street sweep. “They’re not choosing to be outside; they’re choosing the best available option. And in their shoes, you would choose it too.”

Homelessness has surged in Rochester, shelter providers and advocates agree. Advocates for the unhoused say the city and Monroe County do not do enough when it comes to creating long-lasting and reliable solutions.

“(Homelessness) is not a growing crisis—we are in a crisis. It is a full-blown crisis at this point,” says Kaylin Schlonski, vice president of programs at Open Door Mission.

By the numbers

Homelessness is measured throughout the United States by taking point-in-time counts, in which street outreach workers identify early in the year people currently unhoused on a single night, and estimate total counts. According to Partners Ending Homelessness, which manages estimates for Rochester and Monroe County, all related metrics—including sheltered, unsheltered and chronic homelessness—have increased substantially over the last year.

“When I say cataclysmic, I’m not being bombastic,” D’Amico says. “It’s terrible numbers in Monroe County.”

Partners Ending Homelessness maintains the increase in homelessness stems from a high rate of eviction cases and a decrease in affordable housing throughout the city. In fact, eviction filings have returned to prepandemic levels after a moratorium, instituted from March 2020 to January 2022, was lifted. According to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the fair market rent for one- and two-bedroom apartments has risen nearly 40 percent in the last five years, higher than area median income.

Rochester’s shelter system

While Rochester has shelters for its unhoused community, advocates and shelter providers say these options can present challenges for individuals in need of those services.

For instance, Schlonski says a shelter setting could be a primary barrier to receiving care altogether.

“Shelter settings can be retraumatizing for many people. We talk about people who come out of prison, (or) out of jail. You’re in a congregate-type setting, (which) can be pretty triggering,” she adds. “For women, it’s often really hard to take that step to go into a shelter because of safety concerns.”

For the Center for Youth, an LGBTQIA+ safe zone and shelter providing services to unhoused youth, that concern comes from ensuring the shelter can accommodate the needs of the specific community it serves.

“Those of us who are (cis-gendered) don’t understand the depths of how unsafe it feels when somebody will not honor and respect who they are,” explains Valerie Douglas, director of counseling and runaway and homeless youth services at Center for Youth. “Even sometimes well-intentioned mistakes, curiosity (and) unintended misgendering can make a trans person feel really, really unsafe. And we think it’s such a little thing, but for them, it’s not little.”

Advocates point to trauma-informed care as a key solution to serving the unhoused. It prioritizes the experiences of the individual when establishing the best avenue of care for them. An individual affected by substance use disorders, for instance, may not acclimate to a shelter where paraphernalia is confiscated at the door.

“At the end of the day, that person who is experiencing the crisis knows what is best for them, because they are the ones going through it,” says Mickey Di Perna, RGPR organizer and LGBTQIA+ advocate. “Any good mental health professional will tell you: ‘We’re not trying to push anybody to do anything.’ We are walking next to somebody as a partner in their recovery.”

Yet Douglas explains that level of care may not be feasible under existing shelter licensing.

“It’s really hard for agencies to be risk tolerant based on the certifications and regulations they have to follow from their licensors,” she explains. “We have to make decisions about how we look at our regulations and how we interpret them, but it (also) puts organizations in jeopardy of losing their license.”

Low-barrier shelters

Low-barrier shelters, like Project Haven, are seen as an option to accommodate as many unhoused as possible. An individual seeking shelter would not have to comply with the rules and regulations commonly seen at other shelters and thus would have fewer barriers to finding care.

“Low-barrier is really the key to everything because it allows you to provide an open door for everyone,” states Patrick Tobin, board chair of Reach. “There’s no barrier to entry. … There’s no guardrails that are really negative towards the community of those that are homeless or unhoused.”

Project Haven’s six sites were considered low-barrier—including specific shelters for people facing chronic homelessness, women fleeing sex trafficking and men pursuing sober living. Di Perna says one of the sites safely housed LGBTQIA+ adults.

“It’s catastrophically devastating, especially because we’re getting new residents who are queer every single day because they’re fleeing other situations from other states because of what’s going on right now,” they say. 

The foundation for Project Haven was established in 2022 through an agreement between DHS and Reach that, the nonprofit claims, would have allowed Reach to serve a greater unhoused population through a per diem contract. Despite challenges in establishing that contract, Reach officials say, it opened Project Haven under the assumption funding would be fulfilled. However, despite significant startup and operational costs, funding over the first two years of the program never accommodated its needs.

“Project Haven continued operations with the promise of relief of its incurred debt and smoother reimbursements with other public funds that never materialized,” Reach stated in its newsletter. “Inadequate funding makes it more difficult than ever to meet our payroll and bills that have escalated since the beginning.”

Tobin claims the issue lies not in funding alone, but in how it’s distributed.

“You have to understand your population, and understand the homeless population first,” he explains. “You should understand you’re not going to get the bureaucratic requirements that you’re mandating completed. … We need to do a better job of figuring out with the population we’re serving how we can best get the money to serve them and get them into housing.”

Barz finds the blame on the county misplaced, stressing that its agency has worked with Reach on a customized payment plan to keep the shelter open. 

“Monroe County has active placements for 243 families and individuals, works closely with several temporary housing providers, and remains committed to finding long-term solutions for the unhoused,” he says.

Tobin says Project Haven’s operational budget exceeded the funding levels, as Reach sought a per diem contract based on the allotted beds. He claims the county instead provided a standard contract—which, according to Barz, has been fulfilled.

A significant portion of Project Haven’s funding came from the provision of Code Blue beds during the winter. Monroe County’s Code Blue services provide warming centers and free transportation for individuals living outdoors without housing when temperatures drop below 30 degrees. Last winter, Reach claimed its Code Blue funding was rescinded—after nine years of provision. The county’s reasons, Reach officials say, was “adequate beds were already provided.”

Unhoused encampments

People who live in encampments are subject to weather and sweeps. The Marshall Street sweep was not the first time Rochester has cracked down on unhoused encampments. In 2022, an encampment on Loomis Street was swept amid efforts from nonprofits and advocates to prevent it.

While he currently engages in street outreach and advocacy for the unhoused, Michael Motchnik lived at the Loomis Street encampment during its sweep. He had learned of the encampment after three months of living in the woods by himself.

“I found myself surrounded by people with the same … issues that I was dealing with,” he says. “And as I grew to know and really care about all of the people that lived at Loomis Street, it became clear that it was a place of, almost a place of sanctuary where we all took care of one another.”

Though the residents faced individual challenges—whether from substance use disorders, mental health challenges or food insecurity—Motchnik says they provided care for one another through their united experience.

“We made sure that everyone was fed,” he says. “We made sure that each and every one of us were safe. … And then the city of Rochester came in with bulldozers and dump trucks and told us that we had to leave and that we were on city property, that we were no longer welcome, and that if we had stayed any longer, we were subject to be arrested for being poverty-stricken, for being without shelter, for being without food, for being folks lowest on the totem pole.”

Encampment sweeps, he adds, disproportionately affect individuals due to the amount of personal belongings they lose when their living quarters are deconstructed. Many individuals have important documents on them—from IDs and birth certificates to social security cards.

“When these encampments sweeps happen, those are the kinds of things that are thrown, just thrown away … like they’re trash, when really they are people’s most prized possessions,” he observes. “I think it gets overshadowed that these people must not have anything to care about as far as belongings go. … I had my dad’s ashes with me and I had my sister’s picture with me, right? I had things that reminded me that I wasn’t just a homeless person, that I was his son and a brother and an uncle and so many more other things, right?”

Rochester does have a sanctioned encampment where it routes the unhoused. In 2022, the city partnered with Person Centered Housing Options, a housing advocacy organization, to direct $250,000 of federal COVID-19 relief funding toward outreach services at Peace Village, an encampment established in 2018. City Council allocated $750,000 in February 2023 to improve living conditions at the site.

For Shelye Martell’Roan, who lived at Peace Village before renovations were planned, clearing the site of residents still remains a difficult memory. She is currently unhoused, and recalls the impact having to leave had on her and other residents.

“I felt like it was unfinished business,” Martell’Roan explains. “(Residents) didn’t have any feedback. They didn’t have any legal assistance; it felt like their human rights and civil rights were being stripped at the same time. And I just saw this being a disaster.”

Martell’Roan claims she had received verbal notice to leave the premises in 2023 before a written order. Her intention was to stay at Peace Village for as long as she could and convince others they had the power to stand their ground.

“When you sweep encampment sites … whether it’s a tent, or a cardboard box, or just a mattress or umbrella … that’s their home. So you’re taking away their self-value. It’s an emotional thing. That’s their identity,” she adds. “Most people say ‘I get in my car, I go to my house, (or) I go to my apartment. (The unhoused) don’t have the luxury to say it’s a house or an apartment, but they do have the luxury to say that that’s where they were staying. Once it’s swept, (you’ve) swept away their whole life.”

Peace Village stands empty now, with pallet shelters slated to be constructed after electricity and plumbing are installed.

“The paths are all laid and it’s all fenced in,” says PCHO cofounder and CEO Chuck Albanese. “The city has always been very supportive, providing outreach grants that we’ve actually held for several years, and they’re continuing to do that.” 

Those outreach grants will go toward the operational budget of Peace Village once fully constructed.

Forming a resistance

The Marshall Street sweep galvanized RGPR into action. The group has become more vocal about the plight of the unhoused and moves to action on news of sweeps or other enforcement actions.

RGPR was formed in late 2024 after a June Supreme Court decision gave cities greater power to police outdoor homelessness. The case stems from Grants Pass, Ore., where homeless counts exceeded available shelter space. While courts originally ruled against anti-camping ordinances in 2018, the Supreme Court established they could be enforced.

“We’re here to say (that) there is, at least, a contingent of the population that does not stand for that,” D’Amico says. “It does not stand for the proposition that homelessness is a choice.”

RGPR members point out a stigma against the unhoused that unfairly places the burden of responsibility on the people affected, without considering the systemic forces that reinforce their situation.

“My mom was homeless. My sister was homeless for a while. My mom struggled with substance abuse. She told me that she started using meth because she needed to stay awake to work her two jobs for all of the kids that she was trying to raise,” says Di Perna. “These are human beings. They’re making these choices for reasons, and even though we might not be able to understand those reasons, that doesn’t mean that we should be able to take away their agency and what they get to do.”

Housing advocate Oscar Brewer finds the term “sweeps” dehumanizing.

“We sweep the floor, and whatever garbage I sweep up on the floor, I put it in a dustbin, I put it in a garbage can, it goes outside,” Brewer says. “I know all too well what it’s like to be homeless. I know what it’s like all too well to deal with mental health and an addiction, and thought it was okay to be sleeping on the floor. … No matter what is going on in this person’s life, they’re human beings, and they should be treated as such.”

In addition to advocacy, RGPR also conducts street outreach and educational panels to explain the reality of Rochester’s unhoused to the public. When asked what the audience can do to support those facing homelessness, speakers at a March 2 panel recommended prioritizing the individual care of those affected—before urging the city to end encampment sweeps.

“Continue to do outreach. Continue to be there for them. Continue to provide whatever it is that they need,” said Greater Harvest Church member Wanda Wilson. “I think that’s the best thing that we can do at this point. And I would also say continue to push and advocate against policies or practices or procedures that inflict harm.”

Accountability and solutions

RGPR is critical of the Evans administration’s approach toward the unhoused, calling for more compassion and long-term solutions. The shelter system, which is already under strain, is not an optimal way to deal with homelessness.

Speaking about the Marshall Street sweep, city spokesperson Barbara Pierce says the city finds itself in a unique position given that Monroe County facilitates the funding for homeless services through DHS. (Encampment sweeps, however, fall under the city’s purview.)

“We have dedicated and are paying for out of our budget some resources we don’t get reimbursed for to address our homeless population,” says Pierce. “The mayor’s office understands the problem … and that’s why we’ve dedicated and we’re working closely with the county in a lot of ways.”

A 2024 report commissioned by Monroe County Legislator Rachel Barnhart found the county denies public assistance applications at a higher rate than New York State as a whole, largely for compliance-related issues.

“Are DHS workers getting awards for denying more applications than their peers?” asked D’Amico at a March 11 Speak to County Legislature meeting. “The denial rate in Monroe County is striking. The number of people applying does not make sense either, except that people must be applying again and again and again, because Monroe County keeps denying their eligible applications.”

Barz explains the only regulatory responsibility DHS holds toward homeless services falls under the Temporary Housing Assistance program, operated in coordination with the state’s social service regulations.

“If an individual is not eligible for public benefits, we are unable to issue them per New York State social service laws,” Barz states. “We encourage individuals applying for public assistance to reach out to us if they aren’t able to meet regulatory requirements so we can assist them in maintaining eligibility.”

The county has several provisions geared to alleviate evictions and homelessness, including over $50 million in eviction prevention funding, and a rental subsidy program funded through the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. The county currently has contracts with 17 shelters, including five family shelter providers and a domestic violence shelter.

In July 2024, the county partnered with Volunteers of America Upstate New York to open the Moving Forward family shelter on Ward Street, marking the first time the county had leased and developed an emergency shelter. Moving Forward can house up to 58 families, and offers support with meals, transportation, and case management.

Housing advocates would like local governments to prioritize placing unhoused individuals in long-term housing before evaluating paths to individual care, following a housing-first approach.

“Affordable housing doesn’t exist in Rochester. Housing first doesn’t really exist in Rochester as much as it should,” said Motchnik at the March RGPR panel. “(With) the housing-first model … a person who is on the verge of being unhoused or is currently unhoused deserves the right to shelter, deserves the right to have a roof over their head. Somewhere they can close the door at night, lock the door, and know that they’re safe.” 

Says Di Perna: “We can’t get there if people aren’t housed and fed first. We can’t deal with the gun violence problem until we deal with the opioid crisis. We can’t deal with the opioid crisis until we deal with the unhoused.”

Narm Nathan is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a former Beacon intern. 

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