Some people may know me as Da Homeless Hero, for like too many fellow New Yorkers, I’ve experienced housing insecurity and homelessness most of my life. For me, it started at the age of 2 as a foster kid moving from home to home before I wound up homeless at age 10. And it wasn’t a cycle that I could break — despite my best efforts, my son and my daughters were raised in the family shelter system.
I’m proud of my advocacy on behalf of New Yorkers who experience homelessness. I have been working with city leaders to bring about the change that can prevent homelessness: affordable housing.
Over the years, the conversation has shifted from shorter-term solutions, like shelters, to comprehensive strategies to build more housing in every neighborhood. That’s especially important to someone like me who spent a lifetime in and out of our maxed-out shelter system.
There is always going to be a need for shelters, but the real solution to homelessness and housing insecurity is stable, sustainable housing. The average shelter stay is 412 days for single adults and 437 days for families with children — hundreds of days spent in temporary, insufficient living conditions. We need to permanently house New Yorkers and commit to a more equitable and functional city.
The scale of this crisis can be hard to comprehend. On one single night this past December, more than 88,000 people experienced homelessness in New York. It’s almost unimaginable.
There are a lot of misconceptions about people who experience homelessness. We get dismissed as people struggling with mental illness or addiction or a series of bad choices that left them on the street. But more than half of shelter residents have jobs. Last fall, there were 119,320 homeless public school students, an all-time high for New York.
Meanwhile, New York City has added 275,000 households but only 60,000 units of housing since 2021. We have not kept pace with the city’s population growth. As a result, there are fewer vacant apartments today than there have been in decades, and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are either severely rent-burdened or forced into homelessness.
We simply do not have adequate housing or affordable housing options to house our neighbors, which is why New York City needs to be bold today — not tomorrow, not next year, but today. We need to build housing
We need to encourage housing creation that will prevent families from having to leave New York. We’re losing our workforce, our tax base, and the people that have defined our neighborhoods; character. Every one of us has a responsibility to help build a little more housing everywhere, not just in the same neighborhoods that have shouldered the responsibility for the last decade.
A few weeks ago, I joined a coalition of more than 120 affordable housing advocates, organizations, and allies united to help address New York City’s housing crisis.
Together as the “Yes to Housing” coalition, we asked the City Council to help unlock new housing through a density bonus for affordable housing, removing barriers to moderate density in more neighborhoods, including around transit hubs and on different campuses, allowing for more conversions to residential housing, and removing minimum parking requirements.
The Council will have the opportunity to vote for these changes when it looks at Mayor Adams’ City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal, which would allow the City of New York to finally update outdated, exclusionary zoning rules that are stuck in the past. Adopting these zoning changes would create an estimated 150,000 new units of housing over the next 15 years.
For decades, these out-of-date regulations have been roadblocks to building new housing, especially in high-opportunity areas close to transit, economic hubs, and good schools.
These proposed changes have the power to reverse the trend of Black and Brown New Yorkers being priced out of our neighborhoods, to undo decades of redlining that have divided our city, and to buck the shelter industrial complex by creating safe, stable, lasting housing for New Yorkers.
The urgency of the homelessness, housing, and affordability crises can’t wait, and we can’t afford to continue being a City of No. Our growing coalition is committed to making sure that the City of Yes is one that doesn’t leave anyone behind and that every New Yorker gets access to the safe, affordable housing they deserve.
We’ve got to work together to make this goal a reality. Housing needs to be our No. 1 priority if we’re going to end homelessness. So maybe it’s time for a personal rebrand — you can call me Da Housing Hero!
DaBaron, aka Da Homeless Hero, is an advocate for the homeless.
