The modern homelessness debate centers on the future of Housing First. That approach, which calls for giving the homeless permanent housing without strings attached, has become so dominant that many wonder what the previous system looked like. The answer: the one designed early in his career by Andrew Cuomo, now running for mayor of New York City.
Cuomo’s history with homelessness is not well known because, as governor during the 2010s, he distanced himself from the street crisis that, incidentally, his mental-health policies contributed to. Now, as he seeks a political comeback, he has no choice but to engage with the issue. In his mayoral campaign announcement, Cuomo underscored New Yorkers’ concerns over encounters with “mentally ill homeless person[s].”
Homelessness policy gave Cuomo his first big career break. He founded HELP USA, one of New York’s largest homelessness agencies, in 1986. Housing First had yet to be formally articulated back then, but the Coalition for the Homeless and other advocates were already pressing its core tenet—that permanent housing is the only serious solution to homelessness. Cuomo rejected the idea. “I didn’t believe that you could simply pick people up from grates, install them in apartments in a remote new neighborhood, and call the job finished,” he writes in his 2014 memoir. “Victims of domestic violence needed support services. Drug addicts needed rehab. The jobless needed to find work. Parents needed child care.”…