Priced out: Affordable housing scarce

By AMANDA BENSEN
Published in The Post-Star (A1) 5/28/07

There’s a downside to economic upturn — housing costs can go through the roof.

The Glens Falls/Saratoga region has experienced significant growth in the past decade, and that’s good news for landlords, business owners and the local tax base.

But for people who live in the uncomfortable gap between government assistance and economic self-sufficiency, average rental prices of $700 a month can often mean choosing between paying the rent and buying other necessities.

"There is definitely an affordable housing problem, and it’s getting worse ... I’ve been here for 19 years, and I have been watching this change drastically," said Lee Cleavland, a case worker at the Salvation Army. "It’s truly pushing many of our low-income families completely out."

Federal guidelines for calculating assistance state that "total shelter costs," meaning rent or mortgage plus utilities, should be 30 percent or less of a household’s income. But Cleavland said those numbers don’t match the reality of the market.

"Most of the families we see pay at least 50 percent (of their income) just for rent, not to mention the skyrocketing cost of utilities," she said.

Limited help available

People who struggle to pay rent can get federal assistance through a program called Housing Choice (formerly dubbed "Section 8"), but they may spend up to two years on a waiting list first. About 600 people in this area currently receive rental vouchers through the program, with 200 more waiting, said Bob Landry, executive director of the Glens Falls Housing Authority.

Even for those who receive vouchers, finding an apartment can be a major challenge, Landry said. The program covers housing costs that exceed 30 percent of a recipient’s income — but only up to a point.

"For example, the most we can pay for a one-bedroom apartment is $525 a month, including utilities, and it’s next to impossible to find a $525 apartment in this area," Landry said. "Those places exist, but there’s not enough to satisfy the need."

Federal funding for the Housing Choice voucher program has been cut three times in the past five years because the government was "trying to get a handle on fraud," Landry said.

"They were afraid that there were a lot of tenants who had income they weren’t reporting, but in our case, locally we didn’t find a lot of fraud. And I think they’ve found overall that it wasn’t as rampant as they thought, yet the funding cuts have stayed in place."

The effect has been a kind of "double whammy" for low-income residents who have moved to Glens Falls from other parts of the county to gain better access to the hospital, public transportation and entry-level jobs, Landry explained.

"When those people migrated into this area, apartments were affordable," he said. "Now, the rents have gone up, and the funding (for Housing Choice) has gone down."

Affordable housing projects

The Henry Hudson Town Houses in Glens Falls are among the largest-scale affordable housing projects in the region, with 136 apartment units located between Hudson Avenue and Broad Street. The federally subsidized complex has a reputation for being rundown and crime-ridden, but many residents there said they are simply grateful for a place to call home.

"They work with you on the rent, based on your income ... so it’s good in that way," said Jack Newman, who lives at the townhouses with his fiancee and two kids. He had to give up his previous apartment because he couldn’t keep up with bills after getting sick and being out of work temporarily.

Across the cul-de-sac, a young couple with three children said they had spent about six months on a waiting list to get into the townhouses. Before that, they said, the only local apartment they could find in their price range was so small that the couple slept in the laundry room, while the kids shared two bedrooms.

The mother of the family, 25-year-old Katherine Kelley, said she doesn’t think their situation is unique.

"When I first moved out, when I was 18, you could find a four-bedroom for $500. Now, they’re more like $900," said Kelley, 25. "A friend I work with has two jobs and no car, and she still can’t afford her place. She just told me she’s two months behind on rent."

The one major drawback of the townhouses is the high cost of utilities. The buildings have little or no insulation, and many residents said they have paid $400 a month or more for heat during the winter.

The complex is slated for a major renovation soon, but Landry said that’s not a solution to the affordable housing issues facing the city.

"The quality of the structures is going to improve by 1,000 percent, but there’s 136 apartments and they’re going to be replaced by 136 apartments — it does nothing to ease demand," he said.

Learning from Saratoga

The housing crisis is even more dire in Saratoga Springs, where it’s becoming "virtually impossible" to live in the city on minimum wage or a fixed income, said Windy Wyczawski, case manager at Shelters of Saratoga.

"We’re dealing with more people who are simply working low-income jobs and are unable to keep up with expenses, and getting evicted," she said. "There are some more affordable apartments in outlying communities, but unless they can afford a car, that doesn’t help, because there’s not much public transportation."

Restaurants and hotels have faced staffing shortages at the height of tourist season because of the lack of affordable housing in the region. Landry said he heard of one case in which a restaurant owner actually bought an apartment building in Schuylerville and an old school bus to provide employees with affordable housing and transportation. (A waiter at the restaurant confirmed the story, but the owner did not return several phone calls requesting an interview.)

Landry and other housing advocates hope Glens Falls will learn some lessons from its wealthier neighbor before following its footsteps.

"I think we as a community sometimes get all wrapped up in our economic development efforts, the beautiful buildings, and how successful we are — but there’s another side of that, too," Landry said. "I want to make sure we look at this problem now, because the economy is starting to explode. And because it’s tourism-based, there are a great number of entry-level jobs. Those workers need to be able to afford to live here."

He could be talking about Jessica Thompson, 23, who works as a waitress in Glens Falls and Lake George. She and her boyfriend have been searching for an apartment for several months, but can’t find anything in their price range that’s centrally located.

"For a one-bedroom, I don’t think it should be anything over $500. But it’s not available in Glens Falls, South Glens Falls — I haven’t see it around here," she said. "And it’s hard being young ... landlords have told me that tenants my age don’t pay rent."

The housing authority manages four low-income housing projects in the region, three of which are exclusively for senior citizens. Among Stichman Towers, Earl Towers and the Cronin Hi-Rise, there are 256 senior apartments, Landry said. The fourth project, LaRose Gardens in Queensbury, is open to families and includes 50 units.

Claire Dingman, a spunky 78-year-old with a bad heart, has lived in Stichman Towers for 12 years and said she loves it.

"I’m a very lucky girl. You can live on a small amount comfortably in a place like this," she said. "But if it wasn’t for this place, a lot of people probably wouldn’t have a home. ... When I was married, years ago, we rented a whole house for $55 a month. Young people get married today, and it scares you to think about how much money they need to live."

Residents of LaRose Gardens describe their apartments as safe, well-maintained and conveniently located near stores and schools.

Jessica Thompson’s mother, Sheila Ellis, moved in about five years ago with her husband, who is disabled and out of work.

"We’ve lived here four or five years, and it’s ideal, but it was a long wait to get in," she said. "The housing shortage is crazy around here, it’s hard to find someplace affordable where you don’t mind living."

She looked at her daughter.

"I wish she could find a place like this, too."

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SIDEBAR: Where the homeless sleep out of sight

It isn’t common to see people sleeping on the sidewalk in this area, but there’s more to homelessness than meets the eye. A recent study by the National Alliance of Homelessness estimates nearly 400 homeless people live in this region.

Lisa Coutu, co-chairwoman of the Warren/Washington Housing Coalition, said that number might even be too low.

"I hear about a lot of people who are staying temporarily with a friend or relative, and those people would not meet HUD’s definition of homelessness. But for all intents and purposes, they are homeless," she said.

Coutu helps place people in Shelter Plus Care, a federally funded program that assists those who are homeless and disabled by mental illness, substance abuse or HIV/AIDS. But she often gets calls about people who are homeless for purely economic reasons and have exhausted the resources available from other agencies.

"Those phone calls are hard for me, because the person will say, ‘Well, do you know of any other program that’s available?’ And I have to say no, I don’t. It’s really an issue of affordable housing," she said.

She wishes there was an emergency shelter in the Glens Falls area open to the general homeless population, rather than just specific groups like youths, veterans or battered women. The Department of Social Service and other agencies "do an excellent job," she said, but "the need is greater than what these agencies are able to provide."

In Glens Falls, emergency housing usually means a few weeks in a cheap motel room. The Department of Social Services, Salvation Army and Community Action Agency all offer emergency housing assistance, but case workers said that gets harder as motels raise prices for the summer.

"You can usually get a family into lower-cost motels in the area, but come Memorial Day, that option will no longer be available. I remember one year when someone donated a bunch of camping equipment and we set up tent communities," said Lynn Ackershoek, executive director of Warren/Hamilton Community Action Agency. "Housing disappears in summer, but that’s also when they can find jobs ... and it’s hard to get up out of a tent in the morning to go to work."

Michael Lajeunesse, one of the agency’s case managers, said he sees at least one case a week involving homelessness.

"They’ve just run out of options," he said. "They can get on a list with the Housing Authority and wait for a voucher, but it could be a year or two. In the meantime, they’re really struggling ... we can do a week or two in a motel room, but it’s really just a Band-aid solution."

Lee Cleavland, a case worker with the Salvation Army in Glens Falls, said her agency faces similar challenges.

"Yesterday, I had four different homeless people to deal with, and it took several calls to different motels to find a weekly room we could afford," she said. "When your budget from FEMA is only $5,000 a year, there’s no way you can afford $300 a week for a motel...and even when we have the money, I can’t find a place sometimes."

Currently, Shelters of Saratoga runs the only general-population emergency shelter in the three-county region, on Walworth Street in Saratoga Springs. Apart from the sign in the yard that says "Saratoga Neighborhood Development," it blends into the residential neighborhood and offers a homey environment complete with bookshelves, a television room and a kitchen.

Case manager Windy Wyczawksi said the shelter’s 15 beds are almost always full. Homeless individuals can stay there for up to 60 days — paying $10 a night or 30 percent of their income if they are not eligible for county services — and often use that time to work and save money toward an apartment.

That’s what Stephanie Desadore, 29, did after series of bad decisions and bad luck left her homeless recently.

She was evicted from her apartment, separated from her children (she sent them to live with other family members), out of work and out of options when the shelter offered her its last available female bed. But during her two months there, she got a full-time job as a housecleaner and saved enough to move into her own one-bedroom apartment.

"Not everybody that comes to the shelter has an addiction. Sometimes they just fall short, or fall flat, like me," she said. "If it wasn’t for the shelter staff pointing me in the right direction, I never would have gotten a job. ... I’d probably just be bouncing around from place to place, blowing my money, because I didn’t know how to budget. I get it now."
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Seeking out the "invisible homeless"

Published on 2/4/2007
THE POST-STAR

They started in the frigid hour before dawn last Monday morning, scanning playgrounds, parks, boathouses and cemeteries for signs of life. By the end of the day, Warren/Washington Housing Coalition volunteers had counted at least 235 homeless individuals in the two-county region, including six families and 11 children.

The one-day effort was the group's second official "point in time" census of the local homeless population, which will be used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to calculate grant eligibility.

Several social services agencies also agreed to keep track of how many homeless clients they served on Monday, but had not yet reported their numbers to the coalition as of late Friday. The final total will be available later this week, but the numbers have already exceeded results of the group's first census in January 2005, which counted 198 homeless individuals.

"The numbers have been, for me, just startling. And they're increasing every year," said Cliff Green, who co-chairs the Housing Coalition with Lisa Coutu. "I suspect they will be higher again this year."

The Housing Coalition was founded in 2004 as a cooperative effort between about 20 public and private social service agencies that share a desire to develop more affordable housing options for the neediest members of the community. The coalition has applied jointly for HUD funding with the Saratoga Homeless Alliance, under the name Saratoga--North Country Continuum of Care.

Staci Franco, executive director of the Adirondack Vets House and a member of the Housing Coalition, was among the coordinators of the census. She set out by car around 5 a.m., watching for anyone who may have spent the night outdoors. By sunrise, she guessed, many might have moved on to warmer spots like fast-food restaurants.

Her first encounter was with a middle-aged couple she recognized as "chronically homeless," she said. They had sheltered themselves amid some playground equipment and appeared to be living out of their car, which Franco said isn't unusual.

Next, she found a middle-aged man sleeping in a cemetery -- he told her that he "preferred to live outdoors," Franco said.

She also spotted three youths in a park area in Glens Falls, carrying heavy bags. Franco decided not to approach them because they looked "edgy," she said, but counted them anyway. "You don't find too many 17-year-olds hanging out outside at the crack of dawn just for fun, especially in this weather," she said.

Meanwhile, other Housing Coalition volunteers were walking around the docks and shuttered seasonal buildings of Lake George, and other possible locations for the homeless to seek shelter.

Franco spent her morning working at the Vets House, then went out to continue the census on foot around 11 a.m. She dressed very casually, hoping to appear as non-threatening as possible to anyone she might meet.

A bitter wind whipped through the streets, and few people were visible on the sidewalks. Franco approached three young men standing outside a store near the intersection of Broad and South streets. They were willing to talk, but said they didn't know anyone who was homeless. Then Franco asked if they knew anyone who did what she calls "couch hopping," spending a few months at a time at various friends' homes without maintaining a permanent residence.

"Yeah, that's like all my friends," one of them said, the others nodding in agreement.

Later, Franco said she thinks couch hopping is a growing trend that masks the true extent of homelessness in the region. "I've come to realize that there are a lot of people who are working and can't afford a place of their own, they are just shacking up with different relatives and friends to make ends meet. But unfortunately, we can't count them," she said, explaining that they would not be considered homeless by HUD's definition.

Seeing no one else on the street, Franco changed tactics and began approaching bartenders, waitresses, hospital receptionists and others who interact daily with a wide swath of the public.

"I'm doing a survey for the federal government..." Franco typically began her spiel. Listeners often appeared suspicious at first, then softened as she explained her cause.

At a few places, the response was quick. The waitress at the Off-Track Betting cafe on South Street said she had about five homeless customers on any given day, and the director of The Open Door promised to do his own mini-census among the soup kitchen's clients. The intake staff at Glens Falls Hospital agreed to keep track of how many homeless patients came in that day.

But other respondents looked puzzled by the question, said they hadn't seen any homeless customers and that "it's not really a problem around here."

That's a common misconception, Coutu and Green said. People tend to think homelessness is limited to urban areas, but the problem goes beyond than the stereotype of a ragged figure sleeping on a New York City park bench.

The federal definition of homelessness does include unsheltered individuals, who are defined as "sleeping in places not meant for human habitation," but it also includes people sleeping in emergency or transitional housing, such as a shelter or a cheap motel. Anyone who is about to be evicted from their residence and has no place to go also qualifies. Of the 261 individuals identified during last year's point-in-time count, 75 percent were in those latter categories.

"We do have homeless people in our region -- they're just invisible," Coutu said.

According to a report released last month by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, there are approximately 744,000 homeless people in the United States. New York had the second-highest homeless population of all states, about 61,000 people.
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The spirit of Shabat

Published on 1/7/2007 in THE POST-STAR

GLENS FALLS -- Peter Shabat doesn't look like a rich and powerful businessman. He looks more like the Maytag repairman, with a Jewish twist -- blue work pants and sneakers, a Carhartt vest embroidered with the words "Northway Service," and a faded black yarmulke that nearly blends into his dark hair.

His office is in a former feed store on South Street, near several bars and a tattoo parlor. Grimy fingerprints cover the cash register and photocopier, and a trickle of chicken feed occasionally lands on his desk from the ceiling.

He doesn't need to be there. He has enough money to retire. But while the Maytag man is known for having nothing to do, Shabat works at least 60 hours a week. He spends his days darting among his office, his pickup truck, and businesses around the region, checking up on malfunctioning bagel ovens and malfeasant tenants.

In his office, he is nearly always on the phone, though most of his conversations go like this: "Seeyouattwothankyoubye."

The only day he takes off is Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath -- "Shabbat" in Hebrew.

This is what Shabat, 55, calls "slowing down" after open-heart surgery several years ago.

He grew up in Israel, as his accent still reveals after 35 years here. He had little money when he arrived, but a wealth of motivation. He started an appliance repair business, which eventually grew to include restaurant equipment sales and service from three locations in Albany, Schenectady and Glens Falls.

By the 1990s, Shabat owned three hotels in Lake George and what he estimates was 80 percent of South Street's commercial real estate. He has sold many of his properties and downsized his repair business in recent years, but still owns four South Street buildings and handles most repair calls personally.

"When you're poor, you work hard and save...Now that I have the money, I can't stop working," he said. "What am I going to do, sit home? I have to use my hands; my mind."

His most notorious investment is the Madden Hotel, a boarding house with a reputation that matches its battered exterior. The tenants are mostly people with troubled histories, struggling with things like mental illness, substance abuse, debt and disability. As a result, Shabat admits, the Madden has a troubled history of its own.

"There's a lot of people coming in there who are just coming out of jail, having nothing...some have problems with drugs. I can't say there is no drugs there now, but it is a lot better than what it used to be," Shabat said.

Long-term tenants say they do their best to improve conditions by reporting those who damage the property or commit crimes. Those who end up on Shabat's list of "troublemakers" are banned.

"A place like that, it's what you make it," said Brian Black, who has lived at the Madden since 2001. "A lot of transients come through and say, 'It looks like he (Shabat) doesn't care about it, why should we?' But there are those of us who do...we used to have fights in there constantly, and drugs in and out of the place, but we've pretty much cleared that out now."

Black stepped into the lobby of the Madden a few minutes later, taking a reporter on a brief tour.

"Ah, shoot. Someone stole that lightbulb again," he said, glancing up.

Shabat said he keeps the building up to code, but it can be a challenge. When he first bought the Madden about 20 years ago, he renovated the place "from the ground up," he said.

"We made it nicer to begin with, but it didn't do any good. They break it, we fix it. They break it, we fix it. It gets expensive," he said. "Some people keep their rooms nice, but others are like animals, punching holes in the sheetrock and breaking doors."

The property is for sale, but Shabat said he won't sell it unless the buyer agrees to provide housing for the current Madden tenants. He hopes to work out a deal with the city.

"I could close that hotel, and it's never going to affect me financially, believe me. But there's a lot of people who, either mentally or physically, have no place to go," he said. "What would happen to them?"

Black, who is disabled by vision loss, said he, for one, doesn't know what he would do.

"If the Madden closed, I haven't a clue where I'd go. It would be a serious inconvenience, because right now I've got everything a stone's throw away," he said.

Shabat said he's "not desperate to sell," although there are days when the property is more trouble than its worth. Evicted tenants have retaliated with everything from swastikas to baseball bats, and the tires of his truck have been slashed several times.

"I don't think anybody else is going to take as much abuse as me," he said with a wry smile. "But you can't throw out the whole bunch because of a few bad apples. You can't give up."

He also insists that any potential buyer agree to keep renting space to the adjacent soup kitchen, called The Open Door.

Last year, a portion of the Madden's brick facade crumbled and fell through the roof of The Open Door, nearly landing on Rev. Bruce Hersey, the Open Door's director. But the falling wall didn't damage Hersey's opinion of Shabat.

"I've watched him over the years, and quietly, he has been very generous and kind," Hersey said, explaining that Shabat was the only South Street landlord to welcome the soup kitchen when Hersey started it from the back of a van about 15 years ago.

"He has come by numerous times to fix equipment for free," Hersey said. "And on Christmas day, he and his Jewish friends took care of feeding people so we could have a day off."

Shabat is an Orthodox Jew, the youngest of nine children born to North African immigrants in the Israeli village of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem. "I started working when I was 9 years old in a little market, and picked vegetables in the summer," he said. "I paid for my own bar mitzvah. My parents were very poor."

Shabat joined the Israeli Air Force at 15, and was still a teenager when he fought in the Six-Day War of 1967. When the Air Force sent him to Pensacola, Fla. for a training exercise a few years later, he fell in love with a girl named Lynne who vacationing there from Glens Falls with her family.

"I thought when I came here, it was only going to be for a year or so, but things change," he said.

He moved to Glens Falls, married Lynne and had two sons, but they divorced a few years later. He remarried and had a daughter, then lost his second wife to cancer. His children are grown now, have jobs in law and health care, and live in other states.

"I don't really want to talk about all of that," Shabat said, a weary look in his eyes.

Light returns to his eyes at the mention of another woman -- Ornit Reindorp, his longtime girlfriend. She also grew up in Israel, and served a year in the Army there before moving to her mother's hometown of Glens Falls about 15 years ago.

Shabat heard of her arrival from other members of the local Jewish community, and welcomed her to the neighborhood with what Reindorp considered a precious gift.

"He came over with an Israeli newspaper!" she remembered, her hazel eyes glowing.

When Reindorp stopped by the soup kitchen during a recent weekday lunch, many of the regulars greeted her affectionately. She said many of them have asked Shabat for help in the past, and they usually receive it, under certain conditions.

"If you come up to him and ask him for five bucks, he'll give it to you...but you have to show that you are willing to work for it. I mean, when he came to Glens Falls, he had holes in his shoes, he was so poor. But he was willing to work," she said.

Elvis Whorf, 25, said Shabat has "always been a motivator" for him to get his life on the right track.

"I can remember many times when I've been without a place to stay, and Peter's said, 'Hey, I've got a room.' He worked with me on rent when I couldn't pay it all at once," said Whorf. "I think he's got a heart of gold."

Reindorp looked thoughtful. "He has a unique personality," she said. "I never met a person with so much patience."

That patience does have its limits, however, as Shabat noted.

"I really don't have any conflicts with people, unless they don't pay their rent or bills," he said. "Then, I take them to court."

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