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.

The post Opinion: Permanent Supportive Housing Is Key to Solving Homelessness appeared first on City Limits.

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. climbed to its highest level in eight weeks, a setback for home shoppers in the midst of the spring homebuying season.

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The rate rose to 6.83% from 6.62% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 7.1%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also rose. The average rate increased to 6.03% from 5.82% last week. It’s still down from 6.39% a year ago, Freddie Mac said.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, including global demand for U.S. Treasurys, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions and bond market investors’ expectations for future inflation.

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage loosely follows moves in the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

The yield, which had mostly fallen this year after climbing to around 4.8% in mid-January, spiked last week to 4.5% amid a sell-off in government bonds triggered by investor anxiety over the potential fallout from the Trump administration’s escalating tariff war.

The 10-year Treasury yield was at 4.32% in midday trading Thursday.

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal officials are circulating a draft budget proposal that would make dramatic additional cuts to federal health programs and serve as a roadmap for more mass firings.

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Though it’s preliminary, the document gives an indication of the Trump administration’s priorities as it prepares its 2026 fiscal year budget proposal to Congress. The document indicates plans to deepen job and funding reductions across much of the federal government.

The budget of the Food and Drug Administration would be cut by nearly half a billion dollars, to $6.5 billion, in part by eliminating some longtime agency responsibilities and shifting them to states.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s core budget would be slashed from more than $9 billion to about $5 billion, with a number of programs eliminated and some transferred into a proposed new agency to be called the Administration for a Healthy America.

The proposal was first reported by The Washington Post. The Associated Press saw a copy of the 64-page document, dated April 10, which has been circulating among some health officials.

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesman did not immediately respond to an AP request for comment Thursday.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By JON GAMBRELL and AMIR VAHDAT, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program are “in a very crucial” stage, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Thursday while on a visit to the Islamic Republic.

The comments by Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Tehran included an acknowledgment his agency likely would be key in verifying compliance by Iran should a deal be reached. Iran and the U.S. will meet again Saturday in Rome for a new round of talks after last weekend’s first meeting in Oman.

Grossi’s visit also coincided with Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, visiting Tehran as the highest-ranking official from the kingdom to visit Iran since the two countries reached a Chinese-mediated détente in 2023. That’s as Saudi Arabia tries to end its decadelong war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen — even as a new, intense campaign of U.S. airstrikes targets them.

In this photo released by the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General, Rafael Mariano Grossi, left, shakes hands with head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Eslami, at the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran via AP)

The stakes of the negotiations Saturday and the wider geopolitical tensions in the Mideast couldn’t be higher, particularly as the Israel-Hamas war rages on in the Gaza Strip. U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.

Grossi visits during ‘crucial’ Iran-US talks

Grossi arrived in Iran on Wednesday night and met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who now is in Moscow for separate talks likely over the negotiations. On Thursday, Grossi met with Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, then later toured a hall featuring some of Iran’s civilian nuclear projects.

“We know that we are in a very crucial, I would say, stage of this important negotiation, so I want to concentrate on the positive,” Grossi told Iranian media. “There is a possibility of a good outcome. Nothing is guaranteed. We need to make sure that we put all of the elements in place … in order to get to this agreement.”

He added: “We know we don’t have much time. So this is why I’m here. This is why I’m in contact with the United States as well.”

Asked about Trump’s threats to attack Iran, Grossi urged people to “concentrate on our objective.”

“Once we get to our objective, all of these things will evaporate because there will be no reason for concern,” he said.

For his part, Eslami said Iran expected the IAEA to “maintain impartiality and act professionally,” a report from the state-run IRNA news agency said.

Since the nuclear deal’s collapse in 2018 with Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the accord, Iran has abandoned all limits on its program, and enriches uranium to up to 60% purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Surveillance cameras installed by the IAEA have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some of the Vienna-based agency’s most experienced inspectors. Iranian officials also have increasingly threatened that they could pursue atomic weapons, something the West and the IAEA have been worried about for years since Tehran abandoned an organized weapons program in 2003.

Despite tensions between Iran and the agency, its access has not been entirely revoked. But Grossi acknowledged in a French newspaper interview that “Iran has enough material to build not one but several bombs.”

“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle; they’ve got the pieces and one day they might be able to put them together,” he told Le Monde. “There’s still a long way to go before that happens. But they’re not far off, admittedly.”

Saudi prince becomes kingdom’s highest-level visitor to Tehran in decades

Prince Khalid bin Salman, the son of King Salman and the brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, arrived in Tehran on Thursday. Iran’s joint chief of staff, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, greeted the prince on his arrival and an honor guard played for the two men.

Prince Khalid, a fighter pilot, has become the first Saudi defense minister to visit Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He’s also the highest-ranking Saudi royal to visit in decades. The last was King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, who did so as crown prince in 1997 for an Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting held in Tehran.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency, announcing the prince’s arrival, said his trip would include “a number of meetings to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries and issues of common interest,” without elaborating.

The visit is significant, particularly given the decades of enmity between the two countries. Saudi Arabia has been for years trying to get a peace deal agreed to with the Houthis. A de facto ceasefire broadly has halted hostilities in the war, though the Houthis increasingly have threatened both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates amid the U.S. airstrikes.

Vahdat reported from Tehran, Iran. Associated Press writer Stephanie Liechtenstein in Vienna contributed to this report.