Mayor Adams has committed to providing temporary housing to New Yorkers with severe mental illness, but the city needs more supportive SROs to prevent a worsening homelessness crisis.
A supportive SRO on W. 22nd Street run by St. Francis Friends of the Poor (Jeremy Amar)
Homelessness among mentally ill New Yorkers is dire and growing, and the city continues to overlook the organizations capable of addressing it. Despite continued efforts, the number of unhoused individuals keeps rising, shelters are over capacity, and more people than ever are living on the streets. So, what can we do?
In January, Mayor Adams made a $650 million investment to provide temporary housing to patients with severe mental illness. The investment includes the addition of hundreds of shelter beds and funding for a new NYC Health + Hospitals Bridge to Home program. This program provides rooms, meals, recreation, therapy and other support to mentally ill New Yorkers for a period of six to 12 months. Then, unhoused residents will be transitioned into permanent supportive housing. However, there is no mention of investment into such permanent supportive housing, particularly the kind designed to serve those living with serious mental illness.
As of July 2024, more than 132,000 people were sleeping in NYC’s shelters, not counting the thousands forced to live in public spaces. Mental health disorders are up to four times more common among the homeless, causing those with serious mental illness to cycle between shelters, jails and hospitals due to a lack of stable housing.
The city’s failure to provide the right housing options has created a ripple effect. Emergency rooms are overcrowded with psychiatric cases, law enforcement is stretched thin responding to mental health crises, and social services are overwhelmed. Without real solutions, chronic homelessness will continue to rise, and more people will lose their lives to preventable tragedies.
A key step in addressing this crisis is restoring support and funding for single-room occupancy (SRO) housing and easing the creation of permanent supportive housing for unhoused people living with serious mental illness.
For years, SROs served as an essential form of housing for low-income individuals, including those with serious mental illness. These units — small private rooms with shared common spaces — were an affordable way to offer safe, affordable housing to those in need. But decades ago, zoning changes and urban renewal policies led to their systematic removal, worsening today’s crisis while gutting the city’s affordable housing stock.
Unlike traditional apartments, supportive SROs provide the simplicity that many individuals with serious mental illness need to maintain stability and focus on recovery. Supportive housing offers on-site services like psychiatric care, medication management and case management — services that are essential for keeping residents housed long-term. SROs are a cost-effective, scalable model that could provide immediate relief for those who desperately need a stable place to live.
However, past concerns about isolating people with mental illness have led to policies that discourage 100 percent supportive housing in favor of mixed-population models. Under current requirements, developments must follow a 60/40 model, where 60 percent of units are reserved for people with special needs, such as those with serious mental illness, while 40 percent are allocated to affordable housing. While this approach works for some, it is not suitable for all. Many people with serious mental illness do best in environments surrounded by peers with access to supportive services tailored to their needs.
The worsening homeless crisis — especially among those with serious mental illness — requires urgent, focused solutions. First, the city must remove outdated zoning barriers and support the return of SROs to make it feasible to build deeply affordable housing again. Second, we must expand 100 percent permanent supportive housing that offers on-site services, structure and community — allowing people with serious mental illness to live and recover together. Without this investment, even well-intentioned efforts in shelters and temporary housing will fall short.
New York City cannot afford to delay. By prioritizing SROs and the creation of more permanent supportive housing as a specialized solution for people living with serious mental illness, the city can address homelessness in a meaningful way. Housing is not just a policy issue — it is a matter of life and death. It is time to act.
Christina Byrne is executive director, and Linda Flores is development and communications manager of St. Francis Friends of the Poor.
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