"Program" People

Why are these tenants frequent guests at Kings County? Are they being taken to the R-building?

Sometimes the non-profits obtain leases for the apartments in the entire building, but more often they a few leases for apartments within a building. As a result, there is no list.

The requirements for the apartments vary by funding source, but they all are supposed to be in pretty good shape. Here's a list of the requirements for a HUD funded unit:

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=DOC_11775.pdf

Landlords agree to these arrangements because they believe that they will be paid more for the "program tenants" than tenants who would regulary rent in their buildings.

If the market changes for the better, the landlords stop accepting such arrangements.

Are the buildings actually in good shape? Well, at present, NYC's shelter system is overflowing and housing at the low end of the market is scarce, so this ties the hands of nonprofits who would otherwise remove their clients from a lousy building.

What does the law say about housing the mentally ill near those who are part of the general population (for the lack of a better term)? 

I used to work for a housing first agency in the neighborhood and as described above, the agency would hold the lease on the apartment and then the client would pay 30% of the cost of the rent (the remainder was covered through a variety of other funding sources).  I can appreciate the concerns of people living in the building, as there were times where I thought to myself that I wouldn't want to live in such a building either. 

 

You can have people hospitalized if they meet the criteria of danger to self or others, but even then there's nothing to preclude that person from returning to the same apartment (or switching two problematic tenants thinking that maybe a change of scenery will help).  If you complain to management they may be less inclined to renew the lease, but that may have as much to do with being able to attract other tenants than anything else.  There's a big focus on integration, meaning having people with mental illnesses integrated into the larger population.  As such, arrangements like this are becoming increasingly common.  Even advocates for the mentally ill sometimes find themselves caught between their ideals and NIMBY type thinking.  The question of what to do with the seriously mentally ill is an issue that has been wrangled over for many, many years and I'd imagine that it's an issue we'll continue to struggle with as a society for many of the aforementioned reasons.  There are no easy answers, and there are many mentally ill individuals who are good tenants.  That doesn't make it any easier when an emotionally disturbed person is making your life a nightmare.