Suffolk County Legislature

WELFARE TO WORK COMMISSION

of the Suffolk County Legislature

c/o Clerk of the Legislature 725 Veterans Memorial Highway

Smithtown NY 11787

631-499-6725

December 8, 2022

To: Members of the Suffolk County Legislature

Re: Report on Suffolk County Poverty

The Welfare to Work Commission is pleased to provide you with our report, “Still Struggling in Suburbia: The Unmet Challenges of Poverty in Suffolk County,” updating our 2012 poverty report. The report draws on the testimony of 87 witnesses during 11 hours of public hearings, four focus groups as well as supplemental research.

This report was adopted on December 8, 2022, the same day Newsday published a story about Long Island’s encouraging economic data that are tempered by “a persistent level of need.”

Our report documents that need, the struggles of tens of thousands of Suffolk residents who, despite working, still cannot make ends meet in a region where studies show that a family of four needs about $100,000 to pay for basic necessities.

The report documents the extent of poverty in Suffolk, the need to redefine who is poor, the structural causes of poverty, programs that help and hurt working-poor families who often earn too much to qualify for government supports.

The report concludes with specific recommendations, prioritizing Suffolk County actions to help low-income people while benefitting the Suffolk economy.

Yours truly for the Commission,

Richard Koubek, PhD, Chair Ayesha Alleyne, Vice Chair

SUFFOLK COUNTY LEGISLATURE

WELFARE TO WORK COMMISSION

of the Suffolk County Legislature

Acknowledgments

This report was prepared by the Poverty Hearings Committee of the Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature. The report was drafted by Dr. Richard Koubek, Chair of the Welfare to Work Commission. The report was outlined, critiqued and edited by the Poverty Report Committee and then reviewed at the November 15th, 2012 meeting and reviewed again and adopted by the full Welfare to Work Commission on December 8th, 2022. The Commission is grateful to those whose names appear in Appendix B below who participated in the hearings, focus groups and discussions that shaped this report. The Commission is grateful for the assistance received from Clerk of the Legislature Frank Tassone and his staff and the Legislature’s IT staff in arranging for the public hearings and for the dissemination of this report. Special thanks to the following members of the Commission’s Poverty Report Committee who assisted with the design, implementation, research, editing and publication of the report: Richard Koubek; Chair, Ayesha Alleyne; Paola Arango; Fred Combs; Jr., Greta Guarton; Arlene Jackson; Cheryl Keshner, Christian Limbach; Colleen Merlo; Vincent Rothaar.

Dedication to Don Friedman

Contents

(In the electronic version, click the highlighted/underlined word in the Table of Contents which is a link to that page. Click “Return” at the end of each part to return to the Table of Contents.)

Page

‌Acknowledgments 1

Executive Summary 3

Part I -  Introduction: Does Anyone “Deserve”

to Be Poor in Suffolk County? 6

Part II - Who is Still Poor in Suffolk County? 9

$100,000: Suffolk’s Base-Line Income for a Family of Four 9

How Much Poverty is There in Suffolk? 11

Who is Poor in Suffolk? 14

The Struggling Near Poor 15

Long Island Economic Security is Relative and Fragile 20

Part III - Structural Causes of Poverty: Suffolk’s Housing Crisis 21

Priced Out of a Home 21

Long Island’s Chronic Shortage of Affordable Housing 22

Town of Huntington: A Case Study of Housing Shortfalls 24

Suffolk’s Housing Shortage and Homelessness 26

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County 29

Part IV - Structural Causes of Poverty: The Intersectionality of

Housing and Educational Segregation 30

Long Island is One of America’s Most Segregated Regions 30

Racial Segregation in Long Island Schools 32

Separate and Unequal 34

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County 37

Part V - Structural Causes of Poverty: Disparities in Health Care 38

The Intersectionality of Poverty and Health 38

Health Care by ZIP Code 40

A Case Study of Health Disadvantage 43

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County 44

Part VI - Structural Causes of Poverty: The Lack of Affordable

Quality Child Care 45

An Underfunded Basic Service for Working Parents 45

Improvements During the Pandemic 47

Child-Care Challenges Remain 48

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County 49

Part VII - Structural Causes of Poverty: Broken Legal Systems 51

Broken Immigration Legal System 51

Broken Criminal-Justice Legal System 52

Immigrant Contributions to the Long Island Economy 52

The Unique Struggles of Undocumented Immigrant Workers 53

Poverty and the Criminal-Justice System 56

The Lack of Government Supports for Formerly Incarcerated People 56

Incarceration by ZIP Code 58

The High Costs of Incarceration 59

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County 60

Part VIII - Problematic Government Programs for Low-Income People 61 America’s Work Ethic 61

Welfare Reform’s Work Requirements 62

Critiques of the Work Requirements 64

The Inadequate New York State Shelter Allowance 68

Disability Assistance - A Case Study of Rigid Government Regulations 72

“Ticket to Work”: An Attempt at Program Flexibility 73

The Federal Poverty Definition and the Benefits Cliff 75

Part IX - Helpful Community Supports for Low-Income People 78

Government Programs That Reduce Poverty 78

Suffolk County Department of Social Services 81

Suffolk County Department of Labor 83

Suffolk County Department of Health Services 85

Essential but Underfunded Nonprofit Agencies 88

Labor Unions and Poverty Reduction 91

Part X - Public Policy Recommendations 93

The Public-Policy Landscape – Anti-Poor; Anti-Tax 93

Welfare Politics 94

Status of 2012 Report Recommendations 95

2022 Report Policy Recommendations 97

Part XI - Conclusion: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats 106

APPENDIX A - Status of 2012 Poverty Report Recommendations 110

APPENDIX B - Participants in the Suffolk Poverty Hearings and Focus Groups

or Researchers 116

Executive Summary: Still Struggling

Ten years after its 2012 report profiling poverty in Suffolk County, the Welfare to Work Commission again held public hearings and focus groups that engaged 87 witnesses whose testimony, along with additional research, led to this 2022 report, “Still Struggling in Suburbia: The Unmet Challenges of Poverty in Suffolk County.”

The good news in the 2022 report is that poverty has not increased in Suffolk over the past ten years. The bad news is that many thousands of Suffolk residents cannot lead lives of self- sufficiency. Using two studies that computed the actual Long Island costs of basic necessities such as food and rent, the Commission found that a Suffolk County family of four needs an income of about $100,000 (depending on the ages of their children) to pay for their basic needs. Almost half of Long Island households earn under $100,000.

Using the woefully inadequate 2022 Federal Poverty Level (FPL) definition of poverty ($27,750 for a family of four), only about 6% of Long Islanders are poor. But due to our high cost-of- living, exacerbated in 2022 by the 8.5% inflation rate, the true definition of poverty on Long Island should be twice the federal government’s definition, or $55,500 for a family of four, in which case about 20% of Long Islanders are poor.

This 2022 poverty report is framed around deep American historical and cultural prejudices against the poor which assume that most low-income people cause their own poverty because of character flaws such as laziness. These prejudices often shape public policies while ignoring or minimizing the physical, mental and societal-structural causes of poverty.

One structural cause of poverty is the lack of affordable housing in Suffolk County where, using the industry standard that no more than 30% of a household’s gross income should go toward housing costs, a family would have to earn $192,000 to afford the Suffolk median home price of

$575,000 and $125,000 to afford the Suffolk average rent of $3,470 for a two-bedroom apartment. This critical shortage of affordable housing contributes to the 250,000 Long Islanders who visit food pantries each year, often because they have to choose between paying their rent or feeding their children.

Another structural cause of poverty are racially and class segregated housing patterns that have made Long Island one of the ten most racially-segregated suburbs in the nation. This segregation creates substantially underfunded schools with major discrepancies in services such as lower- paid teachers or a lack of guidance counselors, thereby tracking many low-income children

– particularly Blacks and Hispanics – into lives of poverty.

In Suffolk County, studies have shown that zip code addresses too often determine the quality of health care, with low-income, especially communities of color, suffering serious health-care inequities. People living in poor Long Island communities of color have measurably more incidences of mental illness, asthma, premature deaths, infant mortality and other poor health conditions. These inequities impose long-term costs on Suffolk County such as lost school and work time and expensive visits to hospital emergency rooms.

This Commission has frequently addressed the critical shortage of affordable child care which is essential in Long Island’s high-cost region where a two-income family is often needed to pay high housing costs. Chronic underfunding of child care was improved by COVID relief funds, but these COVID funds will eventually run out, creating burdens on low- and moderate-income families since the cost of child care in Suffolk can range from $13,000 to $20,000 per child per year.

Another structural cause of poverty are broken legal systems that raise barriers to self- sufficiency. One broken system is U.S. immigration law that forces Suffolk’s estimated 50,000 undocumented workers into an underground economy with worker exploitation and poverty wages. Another broken legal system is criminal justice law which reflects Suffolk patterns of racial discrimination that disproportionately imprison Blacks and Hispanics in the Suffolk County Jail with insufficient supports to help them reenter society.

This report also identifies problematic governmental regulations such as rigid federal work requirements for Public Assistance clients that do not adequately address barriers to self- sufficiency including physical or mental disabilities or systemic racism. The Commission also found that Suffolk nonprofit agencies contracted to provide supportive services are often underfunded or flat funded. Another problematic policy are rigid program eligibility thresholds with recipients losing government supports if their income exceeds the eligibility by even $1. Medicaid in New York State, for example, is cutoff for a family of four earning only $36,908. On the other hand, non-punitive government programs which provide direct assistance to low- income people such as the Child Tax Credit have dramatically lowered poverty rates, while increasing family incomes by $18,000 in benefits.

This report concludes with recommendations for private and government programs and policies, including Suffolk government actions such as:

• Using public schools and libraries as sites to assist clients applying for services such as SNAP (Food Stamps), child care or Temporary Assistance.

• Creating a Suffolk County Department of Social Services step-down program where the removal of benefits is gradual when a client’s income increases.

• Requiring County-contracted banks and insurance companies to support affordable housing construction.

• Offering nonprofit contracted service agencies an annual COLA.

• Creating a Wage Theft Commission to investigate and monitor employer compliance with New York State wage-theft.

In his testimony, LIA President Matt Cohen stated, “For Long Island to remain a vibrant and sustainable home for all of us, additional public and private support is essential to assist struggling individuals and families.” According to one report, the economic benefit to New York State of bringing all households to the income they need to pay for basic necessities would be approximately $278.5 billion, meaning that the state GDP would grow by 17%. Such a rising tide would lift all boats, especially Suffolk County’s struggling low-income people, many of whom are essential workers in our communities.

Return to Table of Contents

Part I

‌Introduction: Does Anyone “Deserve” to be Poor in Suffolk County?

“Why don’t their parents make sure they go to college?” This was one response in a discussion about low-income families on Long Island. The response cuts to the heart of this country’s unending debate about how to deal with poverty. For many – perhaps most – Americans, ours is a land of endless possibilities for those willing to avail themselves of the opportunities offered by

U.S. economic, legal and educational systems. Here, anyone can make it if they are willing to work. Those who are poor somehow “deserve” to be poor because they failed to take advantage of these opportunities.

This narrative is deeply rooted in our culture. Historians tell us that the so-called American work ethic originated in a distortion of the Puritan religious doctrine of Predestination which postulated that an all-knowing God knows at conception who will be saved – the elect – and who

will be damned. Not certain who was saved and who was damned, New England Puritans eventually looked for signs that a person was among the elect, those chosen for heaven. Believers in a strong work ethic, the Puritans found what they thought was the sign of eternal salvation – material wealth, the product of their hard work. The rich were among the elect destined for eternal life. Conversely, the poor were stigmatized early on as being among the damned, presumably because they did not work hard enough to escape poverty.1

The shame caused by the stigma that poverty is the result of a person’s character flaws can be seen in Appendix B of this report where 19 of the 29 low-income people who participated in the public hearings or focus groups asked to be listed anonymously.

On May 26th, 2022, testifying at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing about Suffolk poverty, Rev. Ron Garner, Pastor of Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church, which is in the Puritan tradition, gave a very different interpretation of morality and poverty:2

“In the Book of Deuteronomy, we hear these words: ‘You must give food to the poor,’ [calling] people of faith to practice charity. Charity, in itself, while being a good thing, is simply not sufficient…What is needed is … justice… ensuring that everyone who works is paid a living wage… has access to adequate housing and proper medical care. Poverty requires our political leaders to look at poverty on Long Island with not only fresh but with empathetic eyes.”

1 https://study.com/learn/lesson/protestant-work-ethic-concept-history-interpretations.html

2 Testimony of Rev. Ron Garner, Pastor of Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

Unfortunately, today, the old notion that poverty is the result of sinful behavior remains a North Star for many anti-poverty public policies. Since the 19th century, government programs have distinguished between the “deserving” and “underserving”

poor. As one analyst put it:3

“Nowadays our policymakers are finding more and more ways of excluding people from emergency services by dichotomizing those who are hurting into two groups - those who are ‘deserving’ and those who are ‘undeserving.’ Increasingly, the ‘undeserving’ are being defined as those who can't meet the work requirement for participation in safety net programs … the belief that those who are physically able to get out of bed should at least work part-time to receive Medicaid, food stamps and other programs.”

This analyst continued, “on the surface this sounds like a

reasonable requirement. The problem with it is that it doesn't acknowledge that in the real world many people are unable to work because of mental or other health issues, addiction or because they are caretakers for family members. Further, there are millions of Americans who remain trapped in poverty, who work full or part-time.”4

Ironically, during the COVID pandemic, many of these Americans “trapped in poverty” were celebrated as “essential workers,” people who kept the economy going in low-wage jobs such as health care or food-service. Onika Shepherd, Political Director for 1199-SEIU, the union that represents 10,000 Suffolk County health-care workers, described her members as being on the front lines during COVID, risking their own health, often caught between their work and the needs of their families, such as getting child care for their children home from school during the pandemic lockdowns.5

Another reality faced by people “trapped in poverty” are the deeply embedded, inequitable structures that create, foster and perpetuate poverty such as Long Island’s racially-segregated housing and school systems. These structures predestine children into poverty based on the ZIP codes where they live. And these structures challenge glib explanations that poverty is primarily the result of personal moral failures, laziness and other character weaknesses.

Ten years ago, the Welfare to Work Commission, alarmed by 2010 U.S. Census data showing that poverty was growing faster in the suburbs than in the central cities, held public hearings and focus group that resulted in its report, “Struggling in Suburbia: Meeting the Challenges of Poverty in Suffolk County.” That report explored both the individual and structural causes of poverty in Suffolk and proposed a number of policy recommendations to address these causes.

3 Schoolmacher, Irwin. “The ‘Deserving’ vs. ‘Underserving’ Poor,” Times of Trenton, October 25, 2018.

4 Ibid.

5 Testimony of Onika Shepherd, Political Director, 1199-SEIU, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty, May 26, 2022.

With the release of the 2020 U.S. Census data, the Commission voted to revisit poverty in Suffolk County, again with hearings and focus groups, to determine who is still struggling in our County. In its research, the Commission found that the growth of poverty has halted. But, as in its previous report, the Commission found many thousands of Suffolk residents struggling to make ends meet in one of this nation’s highest-cost regions, despite long-hours of work, sometimes in multiple jobs. Their struggles have worsened with the 2022 8.5% inflation rate.

The Commission’s 11 hours of public hearings May 26th and June 2nd, 2022 plus written testimony, four focus groups (teenagers, senior citizens, low-income women, people with behavioral-health challenges) conducted between August and November of 2022 and the testimony of three witnesses carried over from the 2012 report provided a total of 87 witnesses who, supplemented by research studies about suburban poverty, addressed these questions:

1. Who are the low-income people living in Suffolk County?

2. What are the life experiences of low-income people as they try to make ends meet in our high-cost region?

3. What public polices can be introduced, expanded or preserved at the federal, New York State or Suffolk County levels of government to assist these struggling individuals and families?

4. How has COVID impacted low-income people in Suffolk County?

5. What steps are being taken in Suffolk County to prepare to support low-income people during the next crisis that causes mass unemployment and economic dislocations such as the Great Recession of 2008 or the current pandemic?

6. How do poverty as well as anti-poverty programs impact the larger Suffolk County economy?

What follows are the Commission’s findings and recommendations regarding who is still struggling to make ends meet in Suffolk County, and why. The Commission fully recognizes that for some people, poverty is the result of their own personal decisions, such as dropping out of school. However, many hours of testimony and research revealed that most of Suffolk’s low- income families are indeed “trapped” in structures that foster such negative decisions; systems that pose serious barriers for many Long Islanders to achieve self-sufficiency, often despite their hard and “essential” work. In the end, the report asks what supports, such as education or health care or housing or child care or even food security, the Suffolk County community and government should offer their neighbors who are still struggling to pay their basic bills. This is their report.

Return to Table of Contents

‌Part II

Who is Still Poor in Suffolk County?

‌$100,000: Suffolk’s Base Line Income for a Family of Four

In 2022, the median household income in Suffolk County is $105,362 which is about 1.5 times the amount in New York - $71,117 and more than 1.5 times the amount in United States - $64,994.6 Any analysis of Suffolk County poverty and household incomes must take into account the high costs that families have to pay here for basic needs such as housing, food, child care or transportation.

Professor Diana Pearce’s “Self Sufficiency Standard for New York State 2020” calculates the actual Suffolk County costs of housing, child care, food, transportation, and other basic expenses for a family of four less various credits such as the Child Tax Credit.

The Pearce study examines the costs for eight different family structures (e.g., adult or adult and preschooler, etc.) and found the Suffolk range of basic incomes to be from $41,612 (single adult) to $112,292 (2 adults, two preschoolers in child care) depending on the size of the family.7

United Way of New York’s ALICE (Asset Limited Income Constrained, Employed) analysis, also using actual Suffolk County costs, concluded that a family of four (two adults, two preschool children in child care) would require an income of $111,900.8

6 file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Suffolk%20County,%20NY%20-%20Profile%20data%20-

%20Census%20Reporter.htm

7 The Self Sufficiency Standard for New York 2021, p. 85

8 https://www.unitedwayli.org/sites/unitedwayli.org/files/Suffolk%20ALICE%20Report%202020.pdf

Here is the Self-Sufficiency Standard breakdown:

Thus, Self-Sufficiency Standard and ALICE data reveal that the base line to make ends meet in Suffolk County without frills such as entertainment, vacations, or restaurants is about $100,000 for a family of four, even more depending on the makeup of the family such as the presence of two pre-school children whose expensive pre-K child-care costs need to be factored into the budget and whose base income is thus $112,292.

Here is US Census data on the distribution of Suffolk County household incomes in 2020:9

2020 Household Income Distributions Suffolk County NY

9https://censusreporter.org/data/table/?table=B19001&geo_ids=05000US36103&primary_geo_id=05000US36103

These data show that 47.4% of Suffolk households earn under $100,000 a year, meaning that, depending on family size, almost half could be struggling to pay for their basic necessities.

How Much Poverty is There in Suffolk?

As the Commission reported in 2012, the federal government’s definition of poverty, informally known as the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), is based on the size of the family and is the same for every state except Alaska and Hawaii.10 The 2022 FPL for a family of four, for example, is

$27,750 in Suffolk New York and Suffolk Virginia. The FPL does not take into account local costs-of-living, which, on Long Island, are among the nation’s highest.

For a thorough assessment of the shortcomings of the Federal Poverty Level as well as alternatives for measuring poverty, see the section of the Commission’s 2012 poverty report titled “The Federal Poverty Level: A Critique with Alternative Measures.”11 It should be noted that in this ten-year period, the basic but flawed definition of the FPL remains essentially unchanged.

10 A brief discussion of definitions is warranted here. This report refers frequently to the "Federal Poverty Level" or FPL. This term is used because it is the most commonly used and recognizable expression of the Federal Government's measure of poverty. However, this is actually an informal term that blurs the differences between two distinct official poverty measures used by the Federal Government. The Census Bureau has developed and uses the term "poverty thresholds," a weighted average used primarily for statistical purposes. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) annually releases the "poverty guidelines," a somewhat simplified measure often used to determine eligibility for various federal benefits. The two measures are often fairly similar but do vary considerably at times. To complicate things further, as is discussed in some depth in the section of this report titled "The Federal Poverty Level: A Critique with Alternative Measures," the Census Bureau has developed an alternative, the "Supplemental Poverty Measure," whose levels are somewhat higher than the measures currently in use, and which represents an effort to more accurately describe and determine the extent of poverty in the United States. When the term "Federal Poverty Level" or FPL is used in this report, it is generally referring to HHS's poverty guidelines. It will be made clear when reference is made to one of the other poverty measures.

11 Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature. “Struggling in Suburbia: Meeting the Challenges of Poverty in Suffolk County,” 2012, Pp. 29-37.

As the Commission noted in its 2012 report, the phrase “Suffolk County poverty” seems an oxymoron. With a median household income of $105,362 for a family of four, and an official Federal Poverty Level (FPL) of only 6.1% compared with 14% nation-wide, 12 Suffolk County appears to warrant its position as one of the wealthiest suburban regions in the United States. These poverty levels, locally and nationally, remain about what they were in 2012.

Professor Sarah Eichberg of Adelphi University reported in her 2012 testimony to the Commission that “it is extremely important to note that for a place like Suffolk, with a very high cost-of-living, incomes above 200% of the [federal] poverty level [i.e., $55,500 for a family of four in 2022] are often simply not enough to make ends meet.13

As the Commission reported in 2012 and reiterates in 2022, Long Island’s affluence is misleading. Hidden in our positive statistics is the grim fact that about one fifth of Suffolk households earn under $50,000 a year, which was close to the “true poverty level” for Suffolk County that the Commission, supported by academic experts, defines as a family of four earning 200% of FPL or $55,500. The number of Suffolk households

in 2022 earning 200% of the Federal Poverty Level is about what it was in 2011, 22.7% or 112, 211 households.

As the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island pointed out:

“The poverty rate on Long Island is the highest it has been in more than 50 years, with approximately 197,000 people living below the national poverty line

- but even this staggering statistic does not tell the whole story. There are nearly 268,000 additional households on Long Island with incomes above the national poverty level that fall below the budget calculated to account for basic needs here.”14

Poor people can be found in almost every Suffolk community. They tend to be highly concentrated in certain communities - particularly in communities containing a majority of African American and Hispanic residents - because of racial and class housing segregation patterns that will be discussed in detail below.

The chart below shows that, while African Americans comprise between 7% and 9% of Suffolk’s population, they also make up about 9% of the County’s poor population while

12 file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Suffolk%20County,%20NY%20-%20Profile%20data%20-

%20Census%20Reporter.htm

13 Sarah Eichberg, testimony at the 2012 Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty in Suffolk County.

14 https://hwcli.com/work-we-do/policy-advocacy/understanding-long-island/

Hispanics, who comprise 20% of Suffolk’s population make up about 28% of the population living in poverty.15

Suffolk County Poverty by Race and Ethnicity16

As the Commission pointed out in the 2012 report, legislators, policy makers and the general public already know the names of the communities that have concentrations of poor people living at or below the FPL such as Brentwood (7% in 2010; 9.7 % in 2020), Huntington Station (9% in 2010; 10% in 2020) or Central Islip (almost 9% in 2010; 9.4% in 2020) but many will be surprised to find poor people living in affluent communities such as Commack (2% in both 2010 and 2020) which has a median household income of $197,512 or Hauppauge (4% in 2010, 5.5% in 2020) with a median household income of $120,442, or Half Hollow Hills (1% in 2012; 4.12% in 2021) with a median household income of $143,575.17

The reality that poverty is widely distributed throughout Suffolk County, including affluent communities, is painfully obvious when examining children in poverty in selected school districts:

15 https://datausa.io/profile/geo/suffolk-county-ny

16 Ibid.

17 U.S. Census Quick Facts, 2006-2007 and 2020.

Children in Poverty18

Who is Poor in Suffolk?

Using the federal government’s FPL, 94,000 people in Suffolk were “officially” poor in 2011. In 2020, 94,000 Suffolk residents were “officially” poor, thus showing no increase in the “official” poverty level. A decade ago, 60,465 people lived in what economists characterized as “deep poverty,” between the FPL and 200% of FPL.19 The number of people living in deep poverty in 2017 was basically the same – 59,398.20 Residents with incomes between 100% and 125% of the FPL increased by more than 4,000 people or 44% between 2000-2010 while those earning between 100% and 200% of FPL increased by 40,000 or 29%, reflecting the national rise in suburban poverty at that time which prompted the Commission to write its 2012 poverty report. These numbers did not increase, 2010 to 2020, thus revealing that the increase in Suffolk poverty of the previous decade had halted. 21

The Commission reported in 2012 that the U.S. Census 2010 demographic data for the 91,000 people in Suffolk who live at or below the FPL ($23,050 for a family of four in 2012) provide good insights as to who in Suffolk are among those officially defined as poor by the federal government:

• 8% (5,731 people) of working-aged adults in poverty worked full or part time, year round

• 36% (19,424 people) of poor adults ages 25 or older have a high school diploma

• 37% (19,942 people) of poor adults ages 25 and older have some college or an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree

• 42% (6,465 families) of poor families are female-headed households with children

• 27% (4,161 families) are married couples with children

  
  

  18 Written testimony by Rosalie Drago, Suffolk County Commissioner of Labor, Licensing and Consumer Affairs at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022 and Censusreporter.org

  19 https://pad.human.cornell.edu/profiles/2013/Suffolk.pdf

  20 https://pad.human.cornell.edu/profiles/Suffolk.pdf

  21 Trudi Renwick, Testimony of Elaine. Testimony at the May 18th, 2012 Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty.

  .

• 16% (2,418 families) of poor families receive Public Assistance or SSI (Supplemental Security Income for aged, disables people.) 22

• 71% (63,994 people) in poverty are White; 12% (11,030 people) are Black; 28% (25,255 people) are Hispanic23

These data were not available for 2022 but likely continue to reflect the 2012 data. As the Commission reported in 2012:

“The data challenge a number of stereotypes about people living in Suffolk County at or below the FPL. The vast majority are White rather than people of color. Perhaps most surprising, only 16% of families officially defined as poor by the federal government receive Public Assistance or SSI because, as Trudi Renwick [ who then oversaw the branches of the U.S. Census Bureau responsible for processing, analyzing and publishing poverty, income and program participation] noted in her testimony[to the Commission in May of 2012], eligibility levels for Public Assistance, which are primarily set by the federal and state regulations tend to be below the FPL. Some Suffolk residents living at or below the FPL had normal to high levels of education for the region: almost 36% had a

high school diploma and another 37% had some college education or a college degree. And a significant number of families are married couples with children. Finally, almost 10% worked part or full time, leading Ms.

Renwick to observe that “work alone is not sufficient to keep one out of poverty.”24

The Struggling Near Poor

A US News and World Report 2019 assessment of income inequality in American suburbs focused on Long Island where they reported that beneath the region’s wealth, closer “scrutiny reveals disparities at the ZIP code level, making it clear that health challenges traditionally thought of as city problems – like pollution, poverty and access to care – can transcend city limits and spill over into suburban rings.” The report cited Lawrence Levy, Executive Dean of Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies, who observed:25

22 SSI, or Supplemental Security Income, is a federal benefit program, administered by the Social Security Administration, providing benefits to needy people who are aged, blind or disabled.

23Renwick, Ibid. and e-mail to Welfare to Work Commission Chair Richard Koubek, October 19, 2012 and U.S. Census Bureau American Fact Finder S1703, Op. Cit.

24 Renwick, Ibid.

25 Galvin, Gaby. “The Suburban Myth of Health and Wealth,” US News and World Report, March 26, 2019.

"From the 20,000-foot level, we have one of the wealthiest and healthiest suburbs in America. But the closer you get to the ground, the more you realize the unrecognized disparities. I am in a community where quality and outcomes in health care are terrific, whereas there are neighborhoods and villages cheek to jowl where you could be in the inner city. … Much of the country (has) fallen victim to this myth of wealth and wellness in the suburbs."

As noted above, U.S. Census data reveal that 22.7% of Suffolk households (112, 211 households) earn under $55,000 a year which is close to the true poverty level for Suffolk County. Specific

U.S. Census 2020 demographic profiles (age, race, ethnicity, education, employment, and family status) for Suffolk’s near-poor population could not be accessed for this report.

However, as the Commission reported ten years ago, these near-poor Americans, referred to as the “Missing Class,” were studied over a seven-year year period by a research team headed by Professor Katherine Newman of Princeton University. Their findings, published in 2007, still provide a moving portrait of near-poor people:

“Their grit and determination are extraordinary…. Near-poor Americans do work, usually in jobs the rest of us do not want – jobs with stagnant wages, no retirement funds, and inadequate health insurance, if they have it at all. While their wages stay the same, the cost of everything goes up…. Their incomes, households, and neighborhoods lack the solidity of an earlier generation’s blue-collar, union-sheltered way of life. Missing Class families earn less money, have few savings to cushion themselves, and send their kids to schools that are underfunded and crowded….”26

Professor Newman captured the stress that near-poor families endure on a regular basis:

“Near-poor parents are firmly attached to the world of work…They pay their taxes and struggle to keep afloat…. Yet even as these men and women dutifully turn the wheels of the national economy, their devotion to work takes a toll on their family life,

especially on their children, who spend long hours in substandard day care or raise themselves in their teen years.”27

26 Newman, Katherine S. and Victor Tan Chen, “The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America.” Beacon Press, 2007. Pp. x, 3.

27 Ibid., Pp. 4-5.

During a November 2, 2022 focus group, the Commission heard one story of extraordinary Missing-Class grit and determination. Dolores Gregory, a 58-year-old mother of five grown children, lived in Virginia where she worked in home nursing care. Upon learning that three children, ages 2, 4 and 7, one of them her grandchild, had been the victims of domestic abuse and child neglect, she gave up her job and relocated to Long Island where she now cares full time for the children. Dolores tried to get work here but could not because she could not afford child care. Meanwhile, she is living temporarily with the three children at the home of a friend who offered her two bedrooms and a bath. Dolores is not on Public Assistance but does receive money from the Suffolk County Department of Social Services to care for the children28.

The struggles of these poor- and near-poor Long Island residents are captured in the data on food insecurity reported by Paule Pachter, President and CEO of Long Island Cares/The Harry Chapin Food Bank, in his May 26th testimony to the Commission:29

“There are currently 250,000 Long Island residents utilizing the services of the Emergency Food Assistance Network in both Nassau and Suffolk County. These figures are provided by both Long Island Cares, Inc./The Harry Chapin Food Bank and Island Harvest Food Bank as part of our quarterly reports to Feeding America.

• In Suffolk County there are currently 89,230 residents identified as being food insecure who are also eligible for government entitlement programs such as SNAP.

• Within the 250,000 figure are 79,000 children considered to be in need of emergency food assistance either through the ‘network’ or through their local school districts’ free- or reduced-school meals program.

• In addition, approximately 30% or 75,000 of the 250,000 represent Long Island’s poor including ‘the working poor’ who are holding down 2-3 jobs in order to meet the high cost-of-living in our region.

• As of September 2021, both Long Island Cares and Island Harvest together provided 13,612,453 meals to Suffolk County residents. These meals equate to the food banks’ providing 104% of the total meals required to feed the hungry in Suffolk. In comparison, during the same period, both food banks provided 119% of the total emergency food required in Nassau County.”

The rise in food insecurity among Suffolk residents was also reported by Christine Fellini, Deputy Commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Social Services (SCDSS), in her May 26th testimony to the Commission, regarding data on the SNAP program:

“SNAP or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [Food Stamps] provides monthly benefits to eligible residents to purchase food. In April 2022, 62,000 low-income Suffolk households, including over 34,000 children, received SNAP benefits. We have seen a tremendous increase in households receiving SNAP and, most notably, this

28 Testimony of Dolores Gregory at the November 2nd Welfare to Work Commission focus group conducted at the EOC- Li Bellport center.

29 Testimony of Paule Pachter, President and CEO, Long Island Cares, at r=the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

best to make ends meet and still falling short.”30

increase is only among households who are not on Temporary Assistance [ i.e., not receiving Public Assistance] – 74% adults receiving SNAP have income – pointing to food insecurity caused by economic factors. These are the Suffolk residents doing their

Mr. Pachter further elaborated on the toll that poverty takes on the poor and near poor people:

“Long Islanders experiencing food insecurity are struggling to afford all of the costs associated with living in both a high-cost and a high-taxed region of the United States. With inflation at 8.5% and the cost of fuel, food, health care, rent, transportation, and other necessities continuing to increase in 2022, people facing food insecurity continue to live from paycheck-to-paycheck without any type of financial safety net or savings to soften the experience of living in poverty in Suffolk County. Because of inflation, Suffolk County residents especially veterans, seniors and homebound individuals are still facing difficult decisions or having to make difficult choices between feeding their families or being able to afford other critical services and supports.”31

Karen Boorshtein, President and CEO of Family Service League, described the plight of these struggling families in her 2022 written testimony to the Commission:

“[Low-income] families struggle each and every day and are living paycheck to paycheck. They are forced to make decisions as to whether to pay the rent or mortgage or buy food for their children. They are people working

good jobs and often are two-parent incomes… . We have seen this ourselves at Family Service League where scores of employees leave NY to relocate to another part of the country with…lower rents [and] where they can live affordably. These are families earning $50,000-$60,000. In living paycheck to paycheck, people with low incomes cannot afford to have unexpected expenses [that send] them into crises and a spiral downward.”32

30 Testimony of Christine Fellini, Deputy Commissioner, Suffolk County Department of Social Services, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022

31 Ibid.

32 Written testimony of Karen Boorshtein, President and CEO, Family Service League, Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, June 2022

Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, President and CEO of Family and Children’s Association, also spoke of the struggling near-poor when he testified to the Commission on May 26th:33

“We hear a familiar refrain: ‘There’s a job available for everyone who wants one, in fact there are probably two.’ That’s great but given the high cost-of-living in this region and a CPI that rose [8.5%] in the last 12 months, it would take four or five of these jobs at a minimum wage to house, feed, clothe and support a family in Suffolk County.”

In her May 26th testimony to the Commission, Theresa Regnante, Executive Director of United Way of Long Island, further illustrated the struggles of working-poor Long Islanders, by reporting that United Way’s 2-1-1 Call Center has seen a 16% uptick in request for emergency financial assistance for basic needs and that Project Warmth serves 600 Suffolk County households each year with emergency home-heat assistance, of whom:

• 81% required emergency assistance because of a medical emergency, illness or disability;

• 19% needed help because of loss of a job or loved one;

• 76% had either a child or a shut-in at home;

• 100% were negatively impacted by inflation due to spikes in food, gas, housing, and other costs that have increased average household costs by $250 a month.34

As the Commission observed in its 2010 report, Professor Newman’s research revealed a Missing Class of near-poor or working-poor people who are locked in economic insecurity and whose children are tracked for similar lives. In their generally inferior schools, third graders “are now sweating high stakes tests every year…eight-year-olds wake up with stomach aches because they are afraid of being held back in school if they cannot pass these exams…[while indeed] the failure rates on statewide tests are high in their neighborhoods.” 35

Further, Newman observed, “Trapped in a renter’s limbo, the Missing Class cannot feather its nest for retirement” against a home they own. And, writing on the eve of the home-mortgage meltdown that triggered the Great Recession in 2008, Newman observed, “Missing Class families are generally uneducated in the ways of credit, and credit card companies are all too happy to indulge them.” Finally, her research revealed that “the kinds of jobs that sustain the near poor may not come with health insurance” or, if they are lucky enough to have medical

insurance, it “often comes with very high deductibles” that expose the Missing Class “to medicine of a middling quality” so that, in the end, “when it comes to health, the near poor and the real poor [i.e., officially designated poor per the FPL] are hard to tell apart.”36

33 Testimony of Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, President and CEO, Family and Children’s Association, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022

34 Testimony of Theresa A. Regnante, Executive Director, United Way of Long Island, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022

35 Newman, Op. Cit., P. 5

36 Ibid., Pp. 6-8.

‌Long Island Economic Security is Relative and Fragile

Karen Boorshtein’s observation that Family Service League employees earning $60,000 a year are leaving Long Island for more affordable regions is particularly startling since the U.S. median household income in 2022 is $64,994. Coupled with the data reported above demonstrating that a Long Island family of four needs an income of about $100,000 a year to pay for basic necessities, the precarious existence of the 20% of Long Islanders earning under 200% of the Federal Poverty Level – $55,500 a year for a family of four – is a painful reminder that economic security and self- sufficiency have bypassed far too many of Long Island’s hard-working families.

These data again challenge the relevance and usefulness of the $27,750 Federal Poverty Level

definition of poverty for a family of four that applies uniformly to 48 of the states, regardless of the local cost-of-living. Thus, ten years after the Commission issued its 2012 report on poverty in Suffolk County, we can conclude that, while the number of poor has not increased in the past decade, one-in-five Long Island families earning under $50,500 a year are still struggling to eke out a bare existence while almost half, earning under $100,000 are struggling to pay for their necessities. This harsh reality poses numerous policy challenges for Suffolk County. This report will assess policy areas that, if addressed, could reduce the debilitating effects of poverty in Suffolk County: housing, education, health care, child care, criminal justice, the delivery social services, workers’ rights, food security and public transportation.

The next five sections in this report examine the major structural factors that contribute to poverty on Long Island.

Return to Table of Contents

Part III

Structural Causes of Poverty: Suffolk’s Housing Crisis

‌Priced Out of a Home

As the Commission’s public hearings on poverty unfolded, certain structural reasons why low- income people struggle in Suffolk County emerged, such as the region’s high cost-of-living and the lack of affordable housing. Both issues are deeply intertwined. In July of 2022, one month after the public hearings, the median price of a home in Suffolk County was $575,000.37 Using the standard bank formula that a family should purchase a home that is valued at no more than three times their gross income, a family would have to earn

$192,000 to afford the median home price in Suffolk, which is 82% more than the Suffolk median household income of $105,362. Thus, the median price of a home is out of reach for the 48% of Suffolk households earning under $100,000 as well as some others earning under $192,000.

exists.”38

Given the fact that Suffolk’s housing stock is only 18% rental, low- and moderate-income Suffolk residents who cannot afford to purchase a home have very few housing options. As Ian Wilder, Executive Director of Long Island Housing Services, testified to the Commission on May 26th, “Finding safe and affordable housing has become largely impossible, so an underground economy of unsafe, unregulated attic and basement apartments

These struggles to find affordable housing were corroborated by two recent analyses. On September 2, 2022, Newsday’s cover story was titled, “National Report: LI Homes Overvalued, But It’s Worse Elsewhere.” Citing a Moody’s Analytics report, Newsday reported that “Long Island home prices have become untethered from their long-term

37 https://www.redfin.com/county/1996/NY/Suffolk-County/housing-market

38 Testimony of Ian Wilder, Executive Director, Long Island Housing Services, Inc., at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022

fundamental values… [and] are overvalued relative to long-term trends.”39 While the Moody’s study found other parts of the country where homes were even more overvalued, it did find that “Long Island was more overvalued than the average for the broader New York metro area of 10%.” Long Island homes were found to be overvalued by 16.4%. This overvaluation makes it difficult for young families and working-poor families to purchase a home.

That same day, another article in Newsday pointed out that the rise in home values across the country has increased demand for rental housing beyond the availability of local housing stocks, thus causing a rise in rents. “When you have 20 people bidding on one house, 19 people are going to end up out of luck. And if they can’t buy a house they need to rent.” With rental units scarce, the cost of renting has soared.40

Long Island’s Chronic Shortage of Affordable Housing

In 2007, the Welfare to Work Commission issued a report to the Suffolk County Legislature, based on public hearings, titled “Affordable for Whom? Creating Housing for Low- and Moderate-Income People in Suffolk County.”41 The report opened with this warning: “The County’s housing shortage was one of the most critical issues facing people on welfare and those transitioning from welfare to work” as well as working-poor people. In 2018 The Commission submitted another report to the Legislature on the shortage of supportive housing in Suffolk County titled, “Finding Homes for Our Most Vulnerable Neighbors: The Need for Supportive and Affordable Housing in Suffolk County.”42

The 2018 supportive-housing report contained a section on Suffolk’s chronic shortage of affordable housing. The 2007 report noted that public-opinion polls have shown approximately 70% of Long Islanders seeing the need for affordable housing while almost two thirds of those polled continue to resist the creation of affordable housing in their own communities.43 The report observed that, while local opposition to affordable housing remained intense, public conversations about affordable housing were beginning to expand, allowing for some openness to affordable housing for young professionals and workers. Thus, there appeared to be more acceptance of affordable housing for households earning between 80% and 120 % of the Area Median Income. The report further observed:

“This important shift in the affordable housing debate to include young workers and professionals should not ignore the approximately 270,000 low and moderate-income Suffolk households (56 % of all households) who earn under $70,000 a year and will almost certainly bypass the 129,419 very low-income Suffolk households earning under $40,000 a year. Most disturbing, the 54,194 Suffolk households earning less than $20,000 a year

39 Lamanta, Jonathon. “Moody’s: LI Homes Overvalued,” Newsday, September 2, 2022.

40 The Washington Post. “Reasons for rent hikes,” Newsday, September 2, 2022

41 https://www.scnylegislature.us/DocumentCenter/View/41693/022007-Affordable-for-Whom---Creating- Housing-for-Low-and-Moderate-Income-People-PDF

42 https://www.scnylegislature.us/DocumentCenter/View/52587/06082018-Welfare-to-Work-Commission-Report- on-the-Need-for-Affordable-and-Supportive-Housing-in-Suffolk-County-PDF

43 “Poll: Housing Crunch Hits Home,” Newsday, January 27, 2005

will be virtually shut out of the County’s affordable housing. (The Long Island Index)”44

The Commission’s 2018 supportive-housing report went on to state that ten years after its 2007 affordable-housing report, the lack of affordable housing remains a grave problem for Suffolk County. Moderate and low-income families earning less than 80% of the Area Median Income will thus find it extremely difficult if not impossible to purchase a home in Suffolk County. Many, perhaps most will have to rent. However, only about 18% of Suffolk’s housing stock is rental, compared with 38% for Westchester County. As the Regional Plan Association, Long Island Community Foundation and Ford Foundation observed in their study of Long Island’s rental-housing shortage:

“On average, the Hudson Valley, northern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut have two-and-a-half times the number of available rental homes per household than Long Island.”45

Because of this shortage of rental housing on Long Island, and the resulting high rents, the Regional Plan Association report concluded:

• 56% of renters pay more than 30% of their income for housing as rents have increased much faster than incomes.

• 64% of Long Island renters cannot afford a typical two-bedroom apartment.

• 55% of 20-to-34-year-olds live with their parents or other older relatives.

• Over a quarter of all the rental homes on Long Island are concentrated in 10 communities.46

The Commission’s 2018 supportive-housing report further observed that rents are so high in Suffolk that many thousands of families earning less than 52 % of the Area Median Income will have a difficult time finding an affordable rental unit. This is why a report by the New York State Comptroller found Suffolk County ranking 57 of 62 counties in rental

44 Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature. “Affordable for Whom? Creating Housing for Low and Moderate-Income People in Suffolk County,” 2007, p. 3.

45 Regional Plan Association, Long Island Community Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. “Long Island’s Rental Housing Crisis,” 2013, p. 3.

46 Ibid.

affordability, with 54 % of renters living in unaffordable units, that is, housing-cost burdened

The Comptroller’s conclusions are corroborated by the fact that in 2022, the average rent for a 2- bedroom apartment in Suffolk County was $3,470. Again, using the standard banking formula that a family should spend no more than 30 % of their gross income on housing costs, a family would have to earn $124,920 annually to afford this apartment which is 19% higher than the area median income. This is a burdensome stretch for the 48% of Suffolk residents earning under $100,000 a year and well out of reach for the 20 % earning under $50,000 a year.

Laura Mullen, a staff member at ECLI-VIBES, which serves victims of domestic violence, captured the pain of people shut out of Suffolk’s housing market in her June 1st testimony to the Commission:48

“The housing crisis, and I say crisis because it is making it almost impossible for our survivors [of domestic violence] to do just that, survive here on Long Island. Clients with children coming out of volatile domestic violence situations are now relocating… How does a single person with three kids earning $15 an hour survive?”

Marissa Luchs Kindler, Supervising Attorney of the Housing Unit in the Suffolk County offices of Nassau/Suffolk Law Services, also captured the essence of the housing crisis faced by their clients:49

“Rents on Long Island have never been ‘affordable’ and Suffolk County has no rent- regulation [policies] making the rental-housing market a challenge for our clients in the best of times. However, with the economic and social challenges brought on by the pandemic, the challenges have gotten so much more pronounced. Prior to the pandemic so many rental households were living paycheck to paycheck. All may be well until someone in the household needs a new transmission in their car that gets them to work and their kids to school. Without [financial] reserves which these households do not have, their life is thrown into chaos. This was exacerbated by the pandemic.”

‌Town of Huntington: A Case Study of Housing Shortfalls

The Commission’s 2018 supportive-housing report documented efforts to create affordable housing by the Town of Huntington which illustrated this Island-wide shortage of affordable housing. Following an extensive housing assessment which included hiring a professional planning company as well as conducting a number of town hearings, Huntington released its “Horizons 2020” Comprehensive Plan

47 DiNapoli, Thomas, New York State Comptroller. “Housing Affordability in New York State,” 2014, p. 26.

48 Testimony of Laura Mullen, ECLI-VIBS, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, June 1, 2022

49 Testimony of Marissa Luchs Kindler, Esq., Nassau/Suffolk Law Services., at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022

in 2008 which noted that, “except for the affluent...all segments of the population are affected by the scarcity of affordable housing in Huntington.” In addition, the Comprehensive Plan reported that “for Huntington’s lower-income residents [and] for moderate- and middle-income members of the local workforce, such as nurses, police officers, secretaries, and mid-level managers, choices for quality, affordable rental housing are limited.” The report went on to observe that the Town’s 85%/15% ownership/rental housing ratio “falls short of providing a balance or range of choices for those with different housing needs” compared with the U.S. 67%/33% ratio and that “the shortage of decent affordable housing has resulted in the proliferation of illegal, overcrowded, and substandard housing.”50

Huntington’s conclusions about its affordable housing deficit were corroborated the same year the Comprehensive Plan was released in 2008 in a study by Rutgers University that had been commissioned by the Suffolk County Legislature, which identified the need for 2,789 units of workforce housing by 2020.51 Nevertheless, a study conducted by the Huntington Township Housing Coalition inventorying the actual number of affordable units created since 2008 found that, despite the projected need for 2,789 affordable units by the year 2020, only 729 were completed or planned as of March 2018.52

Huntington has created more affordable housing than some other Suffolk towns, yet its affordable housing stock, particularly rentals, falls far short of demand. As noted above, this housing shortfall is serious for families earning under $100,000 a year and critical for those earning under $50,000 a year. As the Commission reported in 2018, and reports again in 2022, these are the Suffolk residents who have virtually no chance of ever owning a home and who will have great difficulty finding an affordable rental apartment. These are likely among the 250,000 Long Islanders each year who visit local food pantries because they have to make a monthly “Sophie’s choice” - “Do we feed the children or pay the rent?”

Sr. Mary Beth Moore, SCH, Executive Director of Centro Corazon de Maria in Hampton Bays, captured the pain of her clients who cannot find affordable housing in her May 26th testimony to the Commission:53

“I would like to pinpoint the acute [housing] crisis afflicting the East End, from the Hamptons to Montauk and from Riverhead to Orient Point. It is especially galling to see new mansions rising throughout the region while overcrowding, the threat of eviction and actual evictions create terrible stress for immigrant families. And if families must leave their local town or hamlet where they live, they are also obliged to change schools for their children, resulting in a chaotic upheaval in their children’s education. The overcrowding I have seen with my own eyes is stressful too. …I am certain evictions lead to … lifelong damage to

50 “Horizons 2020: Town of Huntington Comprehensive Plan”, pp. 127-129

51 Burchell, Robert; Sean DiGiovanna; William Dolphin. “Suffolk County Workforce Housing Needs Assessments and Responses”, Center for Urban Research, Rutgers University, 2008.

52 Weaving, Roger. “Huntington Township Coalition Housing Report, 2018,” 2018, p. 1.

53 Testimony of Sr. Mary Beth Moore, SC, Executive Director, Centro Corazon de Maria, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

those experiencing this crisis. Ultimately the wellbeing of the entire community is adversely affected.”

Sr. Margaret Smyth, OP, Executive Director of the North Fork Hispanic Apostolate in Riverhead which serves many Hispanic immigrants, told the Commission on June 1st of a particularly poignant result of the housing shortage in her area where one family was forced to live in two separate apartments, yet were fortunate not to be homeless.54

Suffolk’s Housing Shortage and Homelessness

During the COVID pandemic, homelessness actually decreased in Suffolk County, in part because there were federal and state moratoria on evictions. At the May 13, 2021 Welfare to Work Commission meeting, SCDSS Commissioner Frances Pierre reported that the shelter population has been declining with most shelters unable to meet the Department’s goal of 85% capacity. Since 2020, the Department has had to close 34 shelters due to the decrease in the homeless population, possibly due to the evictions’ moratoria. In addition, Ken Knappe of SCDSS stated that the population has also been declining since 2015, perhaps due to the economic upturn during that period.55

Nevertheless, homelessness persists in Suffolk County despite the region’s affluence. According to

the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, the total homeless population in Suffolk from August 2021 to August 2022 was 5,023 which consisted of 1,871 single persons and 3,152 persons in families. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides an intake form that assesses why the individual or family is homeless and requires a shelter. The form does not include the lack of affordable housing as a cause of homelessness, however, of the 15 homeless causes in the HUD intake form (e.g., “domestic violence” or “job income

54 Testimony of Sr. Margaret Smyth, OP Executive Director of the North Fork Hispanic Apostolate., at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, June 1, 2022.

55 Welfare to Work Commission meeting minutes, May 13, 2021.

market: “asked to leave shared residence” and “eviction.”56

loss/reduction”) the two most-frequently cited causes reflect the instability of Suffolk’s housing

Another indicator of the desperate shortage of affordable housing for low-income working people in Suffolk is that almost one fourth of SCDSS shelter residents who have sources of income yet were unable to find housing on their own and needed to be housed in a County shelter, as illustrated in this chart:

SCDSS Households in Shelter with incomes, August, 202257

The various COVID eviction moratoria have expired, raising concerns that the homeless population may again rise. Paola Arango, a member of the Commission and an attorney with Nassau/Suffolk Law Services who specializes in evictions, reported in late September, 2022, that as Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) COVID rental-relief funds have run out:58

“Evictions are happening and are on the rise. What we are seeing a lot of now is post- ERAP petitions for those large sums we were concerned about (some people owe significantly more than the 15 months ERAP can cover). There are programs such as

56 Email from Wayne Scallon, HMIS Supervisor, Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, Inc., to Richard Koubek, Chair, Welfare to Work Commission, August 22, 2022.

57 Email from Vincent Rothaar, SCDSS Deputy Division Administrator, to Commission Chair Richard Koubek, December 6, 2022.

58 Email from Paula Arango to Welfare to Work Commission Chair Richard Koubek, September 8, 2022.

Project Anchor, EOC, and DSS that have funds, but they come with limitations (such as only being able to cover 6 months of arrears). Not only do they have limitations, but some programs are overwhelmed and are taking longer than the landlords are willing to wait for in court. The reason I think that the eviction levels haven’t risen to pre-pandemic numbers is because there are still a LARGE number of cases that are ‘paused’ in court because of pending ERAP applications. If the tenants have an ERAP application, generally speaking, the courts keep adjourning the cases until there is an ERAP decision. Hopefully, with more funds, more of these applications will get approved, funds dispersed, and some people will be able to maintain their housing. Others, who owe more than 15 months, may not be so lucky.”

While evictions are on the rise, additional ERAP funds have been reauthorized in the fall of 2022 which should relieve stress on some people facing evictions due to COVID losses of income.

A Long Island Press 2019 report on homelessness concluded that “a lack of affordable housing is both the leading cause of homelessness and an issue discussed ad nauseam by local political leaders. The report cited Greta Guarton, Executive Director of the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless and a member of the Welfare to Work Commission, who stated: “We have folks living in shelters with Section 8 vouchers. They are really, really struggling to find landlords who are willing to accept their vouchers. That’s a major challenge.59”

Similarly, Steven Brazeau, Director of the Pax Christi Hospitality Center in Port Jefferson, a homeless shelter, testified to the Commission on May 27th that the homeless population they serve includes people who “come with a wide range of circumstances and life histories” including “the working poor… [and persons whose] family home goes into foreclosure.” Mr. Brazeau concluded his testimony by stating that “the cost of housing is a major factor impacting all persons in Suffolk County … and is a major factor in a person’s ability to move out of poverty.”60

The housing struggles of the homeless population were captured by Michael Fay, a disabled resident at the Pax Christi shelter, who also testified to the Commission on May 26th, stating that he is on Social Security Supplemental Income (SSI), receiving $864 a month, but “I have been looking for an apartment I can afford, and it seems impossible. The rents I see in Suffolk County are upwards of $1,000 and even a single room for rent is a minimum of $800, which would leave me $64 to survive on.”61

59 Timothy Bolger. “Despite Progress, Homelessness and Hunger Persist on Long Island,” The Long Island Press, November 4, 2019.

60 Testimony of Stephen Brazeau, LCSW-R, Director of the Pax Christi Hospitality Center, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

61 Testimony of Michael Fay, resident of the Pax Christi Hospitality Center, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26,, 2022.

Rendering of the Matinecock Court affordable housing complex, East Northport, proposed in the 1980s but not yet constructed due to local opposition and government approval delays

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County

Suffolk’s severe housing shortage is at the heart of many other problems facing low-income people such as food insecurity, chronic health problems, the need to work multiple jobs just to pay the rent, thereby causing child-care and parenting problems, and so much more.

Unfortunately, the solution to the problem is largely out of the County’s control and in the hands of Suffolk’s towns and villages that control local zoning through New York State’s home rule policies that transfer to localities control of land use, public services, and community benefits.

As the Commission reported in both its 2007 and 2018 reports on housing, local town and village boards favor exclusionary zoning practices that defer to the Long Island preferred single-home ownership model and they discourage if not forbid multi-family ownership and rental housing models that make the construction of affordable housing economically feasible.

The County has a number of policies that encourage affordable housing such as turning properties that are in tax default over to local municipalities for the creation of affordable units, but these programs hardly make a dent in the problem. There have also been State policies created that have been helpful, such as the Long Island Workforce Housing Act that requires a set aside for affordable units if a developer receives a density bonus allowing construction of multi-family homes on a site that had been zoned for single-family units.

Many housing advocates have long-called for a State takeover of zoning authority to bypass town and village opposition to the creation of affordable units. However, as witnessed in spring, 2022, when Governor Kathy Hochul proposed a State law that would guarantee a homeowner’s right to create an accessory dwelling unit (ADU), which are usually less expensive rental units, fierce bipartisan opposition to the perceived loss of local control or home rule forced the Governor to withdraw this proposal.

Return to Table of Content

Part IV

‌Structural Causes of Poverty: The Intersectionality of Housing and Educational Segregation

‌Long Island is One of America’s Most Segregated Regions

The acute shortage of affordable housing on Long Island is exacerbated by over seven decades of racial segregation in housing that are the root cause of the region’s deeply segregated school systems. Numerous studies have identified Long Island to be among the ten most-racially segregated regions in the United States.

population.”62

For example, researcher David Rusk, an international consultant on urban and suburban issues, found that “African-Americans have faced isolation far more than any other group, especially on Long Island.” His central finding is that “74% of Long Island's Blacks would have to move to be evenly dispersed across the

year due to racial inequities.64

Keith Herbert, a reporter who, with his colleagues, won a Peabody award for Newsday’s 2019 series, “Long Island Divided, ” documented the widespread real- estate practice of racially steering potential home buyers on Long Island. Herbert observed “there are 291 individual municipalities or census-designated places on [Long] Island. African Americans live in 11 of those, so those numbers really tell about the concentration of Black folks on Long Island and where they live.”63

This segregation takes a terrible toll on people of color and on the larger Long Island community. As Theresa Sanders, President and CEO of the Urban League of Long Island, told the Commission in her May 26th testimony, their 2017 report “An Equity Profile of Long Island,” found that “our region was losing $24 billion a

62 Lambert, Bruce. “Study calls Long Island most segregated suburb,: New York Ties, June 5, 2002.

63 Cooper, Britany Jones. 'Where we live is segregated': A look inside one of America's most racially divided suburbs, Yahoo, Life!, July 17, 2020.

64 Testimony by Theresa Sanders, President and CEO, the Urban League of Long Island, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

“Long Island Divided” exposed how illegal yet widespread real-estate racial steering perpetuates segregation on Long Island.65

“In one of the most concentrated investigations of discrimination by real estate agents in the half century since [the 1968] enactment of America’s landmark fair housing law, Newsday found evidence of widespread separate and unequal treatment of minority potential homebuyers and minority communities on Long Island. The three-year probe strongly indicates that house hunting in one of the nation’s most segregated suburbs poses substantial risks of discrimination, with black buyers chancing disadvantages almost half the time they enlist brokers. Additionally, the investigation reveals that Long Island’s dominant residential brokering firms help solidify racial separations. They frequently directed white customers toward areas with the highest white representations and minority buyers to more integrated neighborhoods.”

In a September 8th, 2022 editorial titled, “Endless battle on fair housing,” the Newsday editorial board celebrated three recent settlements with real estate brokers caught in the illegal practice of racial steering, several of whom lost their licenses. The editorial however pointed out that “across Long Island housing discrimination and the steering of homebuyers into certain neighborhoods or properties based on race undoubtedly still exists.”66

This housing discrimination was laid bare on June 2nd during the testimony of Shirley Coverdale, President of the Family Community Life Center, which is affiliated with First Baptist Church of Riverhead, pastored by her husband, Rev. Charles A. Coverdale. The

Coverdales are Black as is much of their congregation. Ms. Coverdale stated that her agency has been struggling for three decades to create a mixed-use, transit-oriented development of affordable housing units on church property. She stated that everything had been in place for

65 Choi, Anna, Keith Herbert, Olivia Winslow and project editor Arthur Browne. “Long Island Divided,” Newsday, November 17, 2019.

66 Newsday Editorial Board, “Endless battle on fair housing,” Newsday, September 8, 2022.

construction to begin on this complex when, in 2016, the Town of Riverhead created another legal impediment that blocked its development. She ascribed these delays to “systemic racism,” noting that she frequently hears opponents refer to potential residents of this complex as “those people” or “those low-income people.” She quoted a former Town of Riverhead official who brazenly said, “Do you think I’m going to allow a Black man to build something in my town that controls more jobs than I do?”67

In his May 26th testimony to the Commission, Ian Wilder, Executive Director of Long Island Housing Services that works to eliminate unlawful housing discrimination, concluded that “the lack of sufficient safe affordable housing is compounded by issues of discrimination which decrease access to housing in a myriad of ways.”68 And that lack of access creates a myriad of other issues, including widespread and deep disparities in access to quality education.

‌Racial Segregation in Long Island Schools

Testifying at the Commission’s May 16th, 2012 hearing, Elaine Gross, then-President and CEO of Erase Racism, stated:

“Our research shows that the high level of racial segregation in Suffolk County creates concentrations of poverty that disproportionally affect Blacks and Latinos….Many studies of the region…show that segregation and concentrations of poverty are associated with lower quality local services, such as poor-performing schools…. On Long Island, more than one half of all Black youth under the age of 18 live in nine…school districts.

In these nine districts, less than one third of young people are White and the poverty rate among households is twice that of households in other school districts. Even when federal and State money is factored in, schools in areas of concentrated poverty have higher levels of unmet needs.”69

Ms. Gross was unable to testify at the 2022 Commission hearing because she was preparing for her imminent retirement from Erase Racism, however the patterns of segregation she described a decade ago have persisted and in fact, have worsened, particularly in Long Island schools.

A research report released by Erase Racism in May of 2022 examined the extent to which Long Island's school districts have different levels of educational resources based on a district's racial composition. The report – titled "Unequal Resources for Long Island Students Based on Race" – found major differences in the distribution of those resources.

67 Testimony of Shirley Coverdale, President of the Family Community Life Center, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, June 2, 2022.

68 Wilder, Op. Cit.

69 Elaine Gross. Testimony at the May 18th, 2012 Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty.

.

Here is a summary of the report’s findings.70 The report grouped school districts based on race. Of the 125 districts, the report focused on 66 districts, which fall into four categories, as follows: 11 Intensely Segregated (90-100% non-White), 10 Majority Black and Hispanic (50-89%), five Racially Diverse (40-60% White), and 40 Predominantly White (at least 70%).

The research revealed the following disparities in Long Island’s school districts:

• Intensely Segregated Districts have, on average, nearly $10,000 less in annual revenue per student than Predominantly White Districts.

• Intensely Segregated Districts have a higher number of students for every guidance counselor and social worker than predominantly White districts. For instance, on average, there is one guidance counselor for about every 1,226 students in Intensely Segregated districts. In contrast, on average, there is one guidance counselor for every 500 students in Majority Black and Hispanic districts, 339

  "There is a tendency for Long Islanders to judge the region's educational success based on the rankings of the most successful public schools, but that leaves the vast majority of the region's schools and students out of the equation. We sought instead to understand how equitably educational resources are allocated across school districts. We found that the differences in resource allocation are stark, depending on a district's racial composition. This must be addressed by state, county, and local authorities."

  
  

  Elaine Gross, Former President and CEO, Erase Racism, Long Island

students in Racially Diverse districts, and 356 students in Predominantly White districts.

• Intensely Segregated Districts have a median of 179 as their student-to-AP course ratio, meaning that there is an AP course for every 179 high school students in these districts. This number is more than double the median ratio for all districts (with at least one high school) and almost two times higher than 99, the 75th percentile ratio for all districts.

• Intensely Segregated Districts have a higher average rate of teacher turnover.

• Intensely Segregated Districts also have the highest average fiscal stress score of 19.70 of the four groups, according to data from the Office of the New York State Comptroller, which is more than twice the average score of predominantly White districts (8.30).

• Intensely Segregated Districts have a much higher average environmental stress score than all the district categories, with it being almost seven times the score of Predominantly White Districts, according to an analysis by the State

Comptroller's Office. The indicators for environmental stress include a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students, high teacher turnover rate, a decrease in property value, a low budget vote approval rate, high percentage of English language learners, and large class sizes.

70 Erase Racism. “ERASE Racism Report Reveals Unequal Resources for Long Island Students Based on Race”, May 23, 2022

At the time of the Erase Racism’s 2022 report release, Ms. Gross stated:

"There is a tendency for Long Islanders to judge the region's educational success based on the rankings of the most successful public schools, but that leaves the vast majority of the region's schools and students out of the equation. We sought instead to understand how equitably educational resources are allocated across school districts. We found that the differences in resource allocation are stark, depending on a district's racial composition. This must be addressed by state, county, and local authorities."

The report also reveals that the number of Intensely Segregated Districts has grown. There were five such districts in the 2003-2004 school year; in 2019-2020 there were 11 such districts. The percentage of Black and Hispanic students in these districts also grew in this period, from 28% to 37% for Black students and 13% to 36% for Hispanic students.

‌Separate and Unequal

The Erase Racism report concluded that the cumulative and compounding effects of resource denial tied to increasing racial segregation reveal a startling conclusion: As long as students' access to equitable education depends on their race, Long Island public education cannot be characterized as "successful."

Newsday’s award-winning series on housing segregation, “Long Island Divided,” homed in on how segregated housing patterns create segregated, underperforming schools. Newsday interviewed Lorna Lewis, then Superintendent of the Plainview-Old Bethpage School District and President of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, who voiced concern over how neighborhood barriers, which affect school district boundaries, can adversely impact children’s educational opportunities.

“During a drive along Clinton Road in Garden City into Clinton Street in neighboring Hempstead Village, Lewis reflected on the different educational opportunities and resources available in the school districts of those two communities. She said it was a block ‘that divides the opportunity…. To me, that should not be’ …. Our education should not be designed by the pocketbook, the ZIP code, the lines that we draw,’ Lewis said. ‘That should not be the reason for educational outcomes. It really shouldn’t. And Long Island is full of that.’”71

71 Winslow, Olivia. “Dividing lines, visible and invisible…Segregation of blacks, whites built into the history of Long Island, Newsday, November 17, 2019.

ZIP-code determined education yields serious deficiencies for Black and Hispanic children. The Erase Racism 2022 report observed:72

“So, what does the racial segregation of students in K-12 public schools look like exactly? First, racial segregation can happen inside a school, wherein White students are tracked into courses that are considered more rigorous, higher in quality, and better for college applications (such as gifted, AP, and International Baccalaureate classes) while students of color, and especially Black students, are tracked into courses that are considered more general or even remedial.

Research shows that such tracking does not sort students based on their ability and that racial bias plays a significant part in it. Second, racial segregation can happen within districts, wherein White and non-White students attend different schools based on how school attendance boundaries are drawn. Finally, racial segregation can happen between districts, wherein certain districts are made up of predominantly White children and others are made up of predominantly children of color (particularly Black and non-White Hispanic children).”

Not surprisingly, numerous studies have found higher concentrations of poverty in racially-segregated school districts, as reported here by the Erase Racism 2022 report:73

“Additionally, when we look at the percentage of economically disadvantaged students in a district’s enrollment, Intensely Segregated districts have an average of 74%. In contrast, the remaining 114 districts have an average of only 27%. We again see the interconnected nature of racial and socioeconomic segregation because, when we compare districts that were

at least 70% White and those that were racially diverse, the average percent of economically disadvantaged students in intensely

72 Erase Racism. “Unequal Resources For Long Island Children Based on Race,” May, 2022, p. 10..

73 Ibid., p, 12.

segregated districts is about 5.5 times and 2.5 times higher. In short, students are segregated by race as well as by socioeconomic status, and this segregation has a negative impact on their access to resources and opportunities.”

These negative impacts of segregation are striking. The Suffolk County high school graduation rate is 91%; in the Wyandanch school district, which is 98% Black and Hispanic and where 92% of the student body is economically disadvantaged, the graduation rate is only 56 %. The dropout rate for Suffolk County is 3% ; the dropout rate for Wyandanch is triple that at 9%.74

During the past decade, middle class, primarily white parents on Long Island boycotted standardized testing, thereby skewing the results of these tests. However, consider these comparisons of educational outcomes in school districts made up primarily of children of color with student outcomes in primarily white districts as reported in the Commission’s 2012 Suffolk poverty report:

Comparison of Selected Criteria for School District Performance in 2011-2012 in Selected Minority and White Suffolk Districts75

These data demonstrate conclusively that student outcomes in racially-segregated school districts of color lag far behind the outcomes of students in White districts.

Conversely, a 2022 study found that integrating school districts by class and race significantly improves student outcomes. “For poor children, living in an area where people have more friendships that cut across class lines significantly increases how much they earn in adulthood.” Commenting on this study, Harvard economist Raj Chetty said, “Growing up in a community connected across class lines improves kids’ outcomes and gives them a better shot at rising out of poverty.” Such integrated, diverse communities and schools produce “a culture of success” primarily through the social interactions of poor and affluent students.76

74 New York State Department of Education, 2019-2020 school report card data, Wyandanch School District.

75 New York State Department of Education “School District Report Cards: Comprehensive Information Reports” and “Accountability and Overview Reports,” 2010-2011.

76 Cain Miller Claire, Josh Katz, Francesca Paris, Aatish Bhatia. “Wealthy Friends May Be a Ticket Out of Poverty,”

The New York Times, August 2, 2022.

Long Island’s segregated schools reflect national patterns of racial segregation that have devastating and often unforeseen consequences on children. In September of 2022, news media ran shocking stories about the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests which found that, due largely to COVID-required remote learning, the math and reading performance of 9-year-olds had dropped to the levels of two decades ago, with Black and Hispanic children falling the furthest behind:77

“In Math, Black students lost 13 points, compared with five points among White students, widening the gap between the two groups. Research has documented the profound effect [COVID] school closures had on low-income students and Black and Hispanic students, in part because there schools were more likely to continue remote learning for longer periods of time.”

‌Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County

On September 30, 2022, New York Times columnist David Brooks addressed what he called “the crisis of men and boys.” Noting that men and boys are struggling compared with women and

girls, he reported that “one in three American men with only a high-school diploma is now out of the labor force. The biggest drop in employment is among men aged 25-

34.” Brooks continued, “Girls in poor neighborhoods and unstable families may be able to climb their way out.

Boys are less likely to do so,”78 Given the data reported above on educational inequities, boys and men of color surely are struggling more than there White counterparts.

During a January 2019 Martin Luther King interfaith service at the Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center in Commack, the audience was asked to picture half the auditorium’s 300 seats which represented the number of students in the Wyandanch School District who did not graduate from high school. The audience was asked what would become of these 300 students? What would their future hold for them? What jobs would they find? How much poverty would they endure? What would become of their children? These are the powerful questions that flow inexorably from the deep-seated patterns of housing and school segregation in Suffolk County and Long Island.

Return to Table of Contents

77 Mervosh, Sarah. “Pandemic Set Schools Back Two Decades,” New York Times, September 1, 2022.

78 Brooks, David. The Crisis of Men and Boys,” New York Times, September 30, 2022.

Part V

Structural Causes of Poverty: Disparities in Health Care

The Intersectionality of Poverty and Health

Health care, much like housing and education on Long Island, is determined by patterns of community segregation, with poor neighborhoods, especially those comprised of people of color, treated inequitably. And as with housing and educational segregation, inferior health care becomes both a cause and a result of concentrating poverty in segregated communities.

Martine Hackett, Associate Professor of Public Health at Hofstra University, has researched over the past decade the ways that the suburbs affect the health of people living in poor and racially- segregated communities. Testifying at the Commission’s June 1st hearing, Professor Hackett said:79

“Where we live, poverty and health are all intertwined. Our social and economic environments affect whether we have access to a quality education, job opportunities, safe neighborhoods, social supports, and healthy resources. … [According to the CDC] interventions with the greatest impact on the health of populations, are social determinants: poverty, housing and inequity. In fact, a person’s education and income are the greatest predictors of their health.”

Professor Hackett noted that “people born in poverty are exposed to social and economic stressors. Chronic exposure to stress leads to a higher allostatic [cumulative] load and burden on body systems.”

She elaborated:80

“The effects of this stress on the body accumulate over time, leading to an accelerated aging of the body, putting people in poverty at higher risk for chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular conditions at younger ages compared to those who are not exposed to the constant stressors of poverty.”

79 Testimony by Martine Hackett, Associate Professor of Public health, Hofstra University, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty, June 2nd, ,2022.

80 Ibid.

Colleen Merlo, Chief Executive Officer of the Association for Mental Health and Wellness and a member of the Commission, offered similar conclusions about the impact that poverty has on health when she testified at the June 2nd hearing:81

“For years researchers have examined the relationship between poverty and health problems. For example, in 2016 SAMSA [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] released a report

about the association between mental health disorders and poverty. The report indicated that 9.8 million adults in the United States had a serious mental illness in 2015. Nearly 25% of these individuals were living below the poverty line….

“Poverty is one of the most significant social determinants of health and mental health, intersecting with all other determinants, including education, local social and community conditions, race/ethnicity, gender, immigration status, health and access to health care, neighborhood factors, and the built-in environment (i.e., homes, buildings, streets, parks, infrastructure.)”

Ms. Merlo’s testimony next focused on the specific impacts that poverty has on mental health:82

“The mental health effects of poverty are wide ranging and cut across the lifespan. Individuals who experience poverty, particularly early in life or for an extended period, are at risk of a host of adverse health and development outcomes through their life. Poverty in childhood is associated with lower school achievement, worse cognitive, behavioral and attention-related

outcomes, higher rates of delinquency, depressive and anxiety disorders, and higher rates of almost every psychiatric disorder in adulthood. Poverty in adulthood is linked to depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, psychological distress and suicide.”

COVID has drawn attention to the importance of mental-health care. Newsday reported on September 8th, 2022, that COVID has caused “tens of millions of Americans to become more anxious and depressed” and that COVID’s psychological effects will remain long into the future. Coupled with a shortage of mental-health professionals, COVID will continue to strain the

81 Testimony of Coleen Merlo, Chief Executive officer, Association for Mental Health and Wellness, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty, June 2nd, 2022.

82 Ibid.

mental-health system where, even before the pandemic, “it … was difficult to find help,” particularly for Blacks and Hispanics.83

Health Care by ZIP Code

Steve Chassman, Executive Director of LICADD (LI Council on Drug and Alcohol Dependency) asked in his May 26th testimony to the Commission, “Is health care a basic human right. Or a privilege.? … If we are not going to invest in the health, safety and education of our citizens, what are we going to invest in?”84

Professor Hackett and other researchers have shown the correlation between people living in poor neighborhoods and poor health conditions. Professor Hackett has focused her research on maternal child-health issues. Showing the intersectionality between poor housing and poor health care during pregnancy, Dr. Hackett testified:85

“People in poverty in Suffolk County are more likely to have unstable housing…. Housing is more than just having a roof over your head; housing has long been a factor that influences health outcomes. During pregnancy, unstable housing is associated with adverse obstetric outcomes and high health-care utilization. This is not a connection that we typically make, especially in suburban areas, but stable housing and supplemental income for pregnant women should be explored as a potential intervention to prevent preterm birth and prevent increased health care utilization.”

On June 2nd, the day of the Commission’s second 2022 public hearing, Newsday published an editorial titled, “Reduce troubling maternal deaths,” that addressed a New York State Department of Health report which found that “across the state, 473 women, 60 of them on Long Island, died from pregnancy-related causes between 2010 and 2019. Even more troubling, between 2015 and 2019 Black women were four to five times more likely to die from pregnancy- related causes than White, Hispanic or Asian women…. A stunning 78% of those deaths were preventable, [such as treatment for] a hemorrhage.” The editorial concluded:

“Disturbingly, discrimination of some kind was a factor in 46% of cases. Among other factors: a lack of adequate follow-up care, insufficient education by health-care providers and others, particularly regarding complications and warning signs, and instances where providers ignored a patient’s expressed concerns. Those issues are tragically more prevalent in the care of Black women. Their needs and pain too often are ignored, the study found, and they aren’t always given the same level of information, care and

83 Olson, David. “Shortage of mental health care,” Newsday, September 8, 2022.

84 Testimony of Steve Chassman, LCSW, CASAC, Executive director, LICADD, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

85 Hackett, Op. Cit.

attention as White women. New York’s maternal mortality racial gap is wider than that of the nation”86

The discrepancies between the quality of health care in suburban White and communities of color were documented by Professor Hackett in a 2015 study of Nassau County health care titled “Suburban Health Inequalities: The Hidden Picture.” Here are some key findings in this study87 which very likely apply to Suffolk as well as to Nassau:

• “Suburban health is strongly influenced by geography. In a 2013 Nassau County Department of Health Community Needs Assessment, health outcomes were examined by ZIP code: 12 ZIP codes where the majority of non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic populations live in Nassau County were combined and compared to all the other ZIP codes that are majority White.

• “Comparing the differences between these two sets of ZIP codes demonstrates wide disparities and inequality. The hospitalization rate for asthma and Type 2 diabetes is two and a half times higher for select communities compared to the rest of the county; the case rates of syphilis and chlamydia are five times higher; and the teen pregnancy rate is 47 per 1,000 in select communities compared to less than 10 in the rest of Nassau County

• “Zooming more closely into Nassau County we see large disparities in health outcomes — communities of color invariably fare much worse than communities that are majority White. Consider the differences between two adjacent communities: Uniondale’s infant mortality rate is

11.5 per 1,000 births and East Meadow has just 0.9 per 1,000 births; childhood asthma discharge rates are higher in Uniondale than in East Meadow; and the teen pregnancy rate in Uniondale is six times higher than in neighboring East Meadow (NYS Department of Health, 2011). Overall, in Nassau County, Black and Hispanic residents are twice as

likely as white residents to die prematurely.

• “Certain health outcomes are worse for Blacks in Nassau County than in New York City. For example, the infant mortality rate among Blacks in Nassau is one and a half times

86 Newsday editorial Board. “Reduce troubling maternal deaths,” Newsday, June 2, 2022.

87 Hackett, Martine. “Suburban Health Inequalities: The Hidden Picture,” Hofstra Horizons, Spring Edition, May 4, 2015.

higher than for Blacks in New York City. This is also true for some rates of cancer and coronary disease”

The striking difference between health care outcomes of Blacks, Hispanics and Whites can be seen in this chart:88

In her study, Professor Hackett asks, “How do we explain these stark health differences that belie the image of what the suburbs are supposed to be?” Her response centered on the problem of racial segregation:89

“Residential segregation is considered a ‘fundamental cause’ of racial health disparities (Williams & Collins, 2001). In part this is due to fewer resources for healthy lifestyles, but minority neighborhoods also often have fewer businesses, fewer services, higher unemployment, worse performing schools, and inadequate transportation, and are more isolated than White neighborhoods. Segregated Black neighborhoods have been found to have two to three times as many fast-food outlets and up to three times fewer supermarkets and are three times as likely to lack recreational facilities as comparable

88 Ibid.

89 Ibid.

White neighborhoods (Landrine & Corral, 2009). Conditions linked to segregation can constrain the practice of healthy behaviors and encourage unhealthy ones.”

Concluding that “place does matter,” Professor Hackett noted, “The growing significance of the association between where we live, and our health outcomes can be summarized by a phrase promoted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: “Your ZIP Code May Be More Important to Your Health Than Your Genetic Code.”90

A Case Study of Health Disadvantage

On August 31, 2022, the Commission held a focus group at the Pollack Center for Recovery and Wellness in Ronkonkoma, a recovery-based program geared towards recipients of mental-health services run by the Association for Mental Health and Wellness. One of the participants was Amanda, a 32-year-old White woman who has suffered from chronic, serious depression and anxiety since about the age of eleven. Amanda’s last name is not being used to protect her privacy.

Amanda lives in the mostly low-income, working-class community of Mastic Beach with her widowed mother and two disabled aunts. Amanda receives Medicaid which she said caps her income at about $17,000 a year. She said that she cannot survive on $17,000 and that this

regulation will “require me to live with my Mom and two aunts for a long time.” She added that the Medicaid cap “punishes people who want to do better for earning more.”

Amanda’s mental-health challenges forced her to take a medical leave from her public library job in the spring of 2022 where she worked about 17 hours a week. Medicaid pays for her therapist and some medications, but her mother, who works at a modest salary as a teacher’s assistant, had to pay out-of- pocket $100 a session for her to see a psychiatrist who prescribed her medications. Medicaid does pay for psychiatrists however the waiting period for an appointment can be up to a year. Her crisis was so severe that she could not wait, causing her mother to pay out-of-pocket.

Amanda’s therapist recommended that she contact the New York State Office of Mental Health for a referral to a day-treatment center that would enhance her talk therapy and medications. Amanda reported that she made about 75 telephone calls to County and State government health agencies, trying to get a

90 Ibid.

referral. She said. “I refused to get angry or rude” however she was getting nowhere. Eventually she Googled “day-treatment centers” and found the Pollack Center which was a fit for her.

Amanda is a senior at Arizona State University, studying sociology and film on line. As an art student, she found an art-therapy program at Pollack which, she said, allows her to see her illness in a new and different way.

Amanda’s struggles with the health- care system are not unique. One has to assume that a privately-insured, more affluent patient would not have faced the frustrations that she did trying to secure appropriate, quality health care. Asked what changes she would make in the health-care system, Amanda immediately said “universal health care.”91

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County

The same day that Amanda participated in the Commission’s focus group, the New York Times published a front-page story headlined, “Life Expectancy for Americans Drops Sharply.” Noting that a drop in life expectancy by months is considered serious, the article pointed out that federal researchers reported Americans life expectancy fell from 79 in 2019 to 76 in 2021.

While COVID was a major cause for this decline, Steven Woolf, Director Emeritus of the Center on Society and Heath at Virginia Commonwealth, said that the decline in life expectancy was “historic” and that none of the other “high-income countries experienced a continuing fall in life expectancy like the U.S.”

Acknowledging that the U.S. health-care system is among the best in the world, Dr. Woolf noted that Americans suffer from “health disadvantage,” an amalgam of influences that erode wellbeing, including “a fragmented, profit-driven health care system” that is compounded for marginalized groups by racism and segregation.92 Amanda is a living example of “health disadvantage.”

Health-care inequities have profound impacts on the quality of life and the cost of public-health services in Suffolk County. Days of lost work and school due to untreated illnesses, lower income levels for people with chronic untreated or undertreated illnesses, expensive visits to emergency rooms paid for by public funds when the patient is uninsured, untreated mental illnesses that result in costly incarcerations are but a few of these costs. Suffolk County has an excellent network of public-health clinics in poor communities, but they cannot make up for the deep disparities in health care.

Return to Table of Contents

91 Testimony by Amada at the Welfare to Work focus group on Suffolk poverty conducted at the Pollack Center for Recovery and Wellness, , August 31, 2022.

92 Rabin, Ron Caryn. “Life Expectancy for Americans Sharply Drops”, New York Times, August 31, 2022.

Part VI

Structural Causes of Poverty: The Lack of Affordable Quality Child Care

An Underfunded Basic Service for Working Parents

In June of 2014, after months of public hearings and focus groups that gathered information about Suffolk County’s complex child-care services, the Welfare to Work Commission released a comprehensive report titled, “Who’s Minding the Kids: Meeting Challenges and Creating Opportunities For Quality Child Care and Early Learning In Suffolk County.” Among the Commission’s key findings were:93

• “The core conclusion resulting from the Commission’s research is: While the benefits of quality child care and early learning for children ages birth to five are indisputable, adequate funding for quality programs has significantly lagged behind the rhetoric to create these programs.

• “During the preschool years, from birth to age five, 85% of a child’s brain development occurs. Yet, 95% of American public education dollars are spent on children over the age of five. Numerous, respected and validated research studies have documented, over time, that children who receive quality preschool experiences are less likely to require special-education services, less likely to become juvenile delinquents, more likely to graduate from high school, have jobs, families and homes in adulthood. The research has demonstrated that children in poor and working-poor families especially benefit from quality programs. Other studies have demonstrated that every dollar invested in child care and early learning can stimulate the local economy from $7 to $19 depending on the variables used to calculate

93 Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature. “Who’s Minding the Kids: Meeting Challenges and Creating Opportunities For Quality Child Care and Early Learning In Suffolk County.”, June, 2014, Pp. 5-7.

the economic multiplier.

• “Despite the proven benefits of quality child care and early learning, funding has not met the needs for such programs

• “The struggles of working-poor and immigrant families to find quality, affordable child care are formidable, as are the struggles of families with preschool children who have special developmental or physical needs.

  Each of the longitudinal studies that demonstrated the benefits of early learning was predicated on a quality program. Quality programs are predicated on adequate public funding. In the growing search for quality, public-school educational standards are being applied to preschool programs. But the funding challenges for attaining quality are enormous. For example, preschool teachers in licensed centers are increasingly being asked to implement validated educational curricula similar to the demands made on public school teachers. Yet, the typical preschool teacher in New York earns only $27,000 a year compared with the typical

  public-school teacher who earns

  $72,000 a year. Again and again throughout this report, one fundamental question is asked: Who will pay, and how much, for quality programs?

• “Long Island’s high cost-of-living has driven mothers into the workforce and thereby dramatically increased the demand for child care and early learning. There are 226,000 children under the age of five on Long Island, with an estimated 133,000 working parents; yet [in 2014] there are only about 62,000 spaces in licensed child-care centers, family-child home providers and UPK programs, that is, spaces for only 46% of Long Island’s children under five whose parents work.

• “In addition, parents with two children using licensed child care might pay $27,282 a year for those services, accounting for 16% of the average household income. New York State recommends that families pay no more than 10% of their household incomes for child care which is the threshold for affordability. One study revealed that 76% of Long Island families who need child care cannot afford to have their children in a licensed child-care program and half cannot afford legally-exempt care (informal care by friends or neighbors) because it would account for more than 10% of their household incomes. The result is that many Suffolk parents are forced to place their children in lower-cost, lower-quality programs and sometimes in illegal, potentially-dangerous programs.

• “Each of the longitudinal studies that

  demonstrated the benefits of early learning was predicated on a quality program. Throughout this report, quality programs are predicated on adequate public funding. In the growing search for quality, public-school educational standards are being applied to preschool programs. But the funding challenges for attaining quality are enormous. For example, preschool teachers in licensed centers are increasingly being asked to implement validated educational curricula similar to the demands made on public school teachers. Yet, the typical preschool teacher in New York earns only

  $27,000 a year compared with the typical public-school teacher who earns $72,000 a year. Again and again throughout this report, one fundamental question is asked: Who will pay, and how much, for quality programs?

• “New York State has stringent health and safety regulations for licensed and registered child care programs. But the commission found a need for improvement in state oversight of the educational quality of these programs. This report identifies validated curricula that can be utilized in quality programs. In addition, the State has initiated a QUALITYStarsNY program that would ensure quality educational standards for early-learning and child-care programs …. Additionally, the elusive search for quality has been exacerbated by multiple government funding streams (e.g., Head Start, UPK, CCBG) that have created competing and disconnected programmatic silos which prevent the creation of a coordinated child-care and early- learning system in Suffolk County and on Long Island.

• “Absent adequate government funding for child care and early learning similar to that provided by other industrial democracies, affluent American parents can afford quality programs while middle-class and poor-parents are largely shut out of quality programs.”

‌Improvements During the Pandemic

COVID provided an opportunity for the federal, state and local governments to infuse massive amounts of public funding into social services such as child care that were intended to relieve the negative impacts of the pandemic. Assessing the impacts of this influx of public spending on social safety-net programs, Jason DeParle, a journalist who specializes in poverty issues, concluded that the result has been an “historic decrease in poverty.”94

“The [increased funding for the] safety net is a departure from business as usual so large it may not be fully appreciated even by those keeping watch. The Census Bureau recently reported that poverty in 2020 had plunged to an all-time low, meaning that the new aid more than compensated for lost wages during the first year of the pandemic. Cutting poverty in the midst of a recession is the social-policy equivalent of defying gravity.”

At its May 13, 2021 meeting, the Commission took up the impacts of these additional safety- net funds on Suffolk County’s child-care services during a report provided by Jennifer Rojas, Executive Director of the Child Care Council of Suffolk and a member of the NY State Child Care Availability Task Force. Ms. Rojas reported to the Commission that Suffolk County will be experiencing the largest influx ever of State and federal funding for child care. The Commission has long advocated for increased funding to solve many of the problems faced by child care that were identified in the Commission’s 2014 child-care report.

Ms. Rojas reported that the three federal COVID funding acts – the Cares Act, Consolidated Appropriations, and the American Rescue Plan – have provided New York State with $1.82 billion for child-care services - $701 million for the existing child-care system and $1.2 billion for COVID-impact stabilization funding. Of the $701 million, there is a three-year limit to spend the funds which will become part of the existing child-care block grant program for child-care subsidies to low-income families. The federal legislation removes existing income limits so that, [effective August 2022, the subsidy is available to families earning up

94 DeParle, Jason. “An Historic Decrease in Poverty,” The New York Review of Books, November 18, 2021.

to 300% of the Federal Poverty Level or $83,250 for a family of four] – long a goal for Suffolk County.95

Child-Care Challenges Remain

Ms. Rojas provided an update on Suffolk’s child-care services when she testified at the Commission’s May 26th poverty hearing. Acknowledging that the influx of COVID funds has improved the overall child-care situation for Suffolk County, Ms. Rojas reported that challenges remain.96

“The cost of licensed child care in Suffolk County ranges from $13,000 per year per child, to as much as $20,000 per year per child depending on the ages and type of program. So, let’s take the single mom. Currently [May, 2022] a single mom with one young child would be eligible for a child care subsidy if she earned $36,620 or less per year.

So, a single mom earning the median income of $52,909 would not be eligible for a subsidy and therefore have to choose between paying 25% or more of her income for licensed child care or finding other arrangements that may not be as reliable or appropriate. The eligibility will increase in August of this year, to 300% of the Federal Poverty Level, which is $54,930 for a family of two, and

$83,250 for a family of four. This is a big step forward and will help many families. However, a family of four earning

$90,000 a year will still struggle to pay $13,000 or more for child care given the high cost of housing and other living expenses. The current structure of the subsidy also has a sharp cutoff which deters parents from seeking pay increases. A salary increase of $1,000/year could cost a parent $10,000/year if they lose their subsidy.”

Kadeidra Henry, a parent who struggled with the loss of her child-care subsidy before the eligibility requirements were expanded during COVID, related her experiences at the Commission’s May 26th poverty hearing. Ms. Henry, a low- income worker, was receiving the child-care subsidy.

“Going to school full time…and working 36 hours on the weekends at …$11.50 an hour, according to SCDSS, I made too much money and lost my child-care [subsidy.] The sheer amount of fear that passed through me was unspeakable. How can I finish school if I do not

95 Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature. Minutes of the May 13, 2021, meeting.

96 Testimony of Jennifer Rojas, Executive Director, the Child Care Council of Suffolk at the Welfare to Work Commission’s hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

have child care?”97 Ms. Henry eventually was able to enroll her children in the Early Head Start program.

Another working parent who fell off the child-care subsidy cliff before the COVID eligibility expansions is Yokarina Rodriguez who also testified at the Commission’s May 26th hearing:98

“I am the mother of two beautiful children. I’ve been working as a purchasing agent at one of New York’s top painting contractors based here on Long Island. A little after I started working there, I received a letter stating that I was losing my child-care subsidy

… due to a $1 an hour increase in my salary. At the time I was earning less than $15 an hour. A single mother of two children, seven and four years old, with an absent father. I didn’t know what to do. …I was fortunate to work for a company that was willing to work with my situation. I had to arrive late to work every day until I could find someone I could trust to watch my children and get them on and off the school bus. But what if I wasn’t as fortunate to have an employer who showed empathy for my situation?”

Ms. Rojas also laid out challenges faced by Suffolk’s child-care work force:99

“The child-care workforce has long been underpaid due to the lack of funding and resources for the industry. Since I just talked about how expensive child care is – the question always asked is why are workers paid so little if parents pay so much? Child care is labor intensive and requires a specific adult to child ratio. There is also the overhead, required square footage, regulations about sinks and bathrooms and windows, etc. So, once you pay for the fixed costs, what is left to pay the staff is usually insufficient. Because it is a model based almost solely on parent fees – and parents cannot afford to pay more – the workforce ends up with low salaries. The average salary for a child care worker in Suffolk right now is approximately $15 an hour. According to the Berkeley Center for the Study of the Child-Care Workforce, the poverty rate for early educators in New York is 19.3%, much higher than the 8.6% rate for New York workers in general. [In addition,] 65%of the child-care workforce is eligible for some type of Public Assistance program, such as SNAP, Medicaid or TANF, according to the Berkeley. With almost 5,000 people working in the child-care industry in Suffolk County, these low wages are negatively impacting our economy and our overall poverty rates.”

The struggles of child-care workers were captured in written testimony provided by Alicia Marks, owner of Marks of Excellence Child Care Center and a member of the Commission, who wrote that “All the providers and staff I know have come across, have advanced themselves [through in-service and other trainings] to unconditionally meet each and every

97 Testimony of Kadeidra Henry at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty, May 26, 2022.

98 Testimony of Yokarina Rodriquez at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty, May 26, 2022.

99 Rojas, Op. Cit.

[state performance standard]. … Omitted unfortunately is the fact that the teachers who are executing all these wonderful [program standards] are doing it at a minimal wage.”100

As too often happens, these child-care workers who provide essential services – in this case, helping other low-income parents to work – are themselves in need of government or charitable supports because they earn to little to provide for their own needs.

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County

The Commission’s 2014 report on child care detailed the enormous contributions that the child-care industry makes to Suffolk’s economy. Given the fact that Long Island’s high cost-of-living mandates that most families have two incomes, quality, affordable child-care is a necessity for working families, especially those with pre-school aged children.

Without stable child care, employers suffer with worker absenteeism as parents are forced to stay home when a child is ill or when child-care is unavailable. This was driven home during the

COVID pandemic when schools opted for remote learning, which will continue to be a problem in the post-COVID economy as more and more businesses and employees are opting for remote work.

The low-wages paid to child-care workers also have wider implications for Suffolk County in that a significant number of them have to rely on Public Assistance programs such as SNAP to make ends meet. And with such low salaries in the high worker-demand, post-COVID economy, large numbers of child-care workers are likely to opt for better-paying jobs, making the pre-COVID shortage of child-care educators even more critical.

Return to Table of Contents

100 Written testimony of Alicia Marks, Marks of Excellence Child Care Center, submitted to the Welfare to Work Commission, July, 2022.

Part VII

Structural Causes of Poverty: Broken Legal Systems

Americans have always prided themselves on being a nation and a people of laws. For the most part, this legal tradition is sound. However, at various times, aspects of America’s legal system have been in disrepair, out of touch with societal needs or reflective of deep social inequities such as racial or class disparities. Two such broken legal systems that contribute to poverty on Long Island are immigration and criminal-justice laws.

‌Broken Immigration Legal System

In 1965, the discriminatory and racist immigration law of 1924 that limited Southern and Eastern European, Asian, African and Latin American immigrants was replaced by a more inclusionary system that allowed for a wave of mass migration to this country from Asia and Latin America and to some extent, Africa.

However, the new system remains out of synch with American economic interests as well as with humanitarian concerns such as the legal and moral requirement to admit refugees fleeing violence and persecution.

Consequently, millions of immigrants, particularly from Latin America, enter the United States without proper legal authorization, despite the fact that the American economy needs their work. For example, one study projected a shortage of 3.6 million needed, unskilled workers by 2024. These are jobs such as farm work generally avoided by native-born Americans that could be filled by immigrants if immigration laws were reformed to allow more such workers to enter the country legally.101 Yet 20 years of attempts by Congress to reform U.S. immigration laws to allow more unskilled immigrants to enter the country legally have failed. So, immigrants continue

to cross the border without authorization and, in most cases, find work, contribute to

101 https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/issues/labor-intensive-industries/

America’s demand for workers yet reside here without legal status, living in poverty and subject to economic exploitation and the constant threat of deportation.

Broken Criminal-Justice Legal System

America’s criminal-justice system is also in need of repair and reform. The U.S. has one of the world’s highest prison populations, with disproportionate numbers of inmates representing communities of color and low-income communities. Local prison systems do not do enough to prepare inmates for life after prison and there are not enough government programs that support them once they are released. Consequently, there is a high recidivism rate among former inmates that is costly to local government and to the communities in which these formerly incarcerated people live.

‌Immigrant Contributions to the Long Island Economy

President John F. Kennedy properly described the United States as “a nation of immigrants.” Since the late 1960s when major changes were made in U.S. immigration laws that allowed many more immigrants to enter this country from Asia, Africa and Latin America, the U.S. is experiencing its third wave of mass immigration. Currently, the foreign-born population of Suffolk County is 15.3% or almost 229, 000 people,102 of whom an estimated 50,000 are undocumented,103 meaning they entered the country without legal authorization.

For over twenty years, there have been numerous failed attempts to reform U.S. immigration laws to accommodate the needs of the American economy for workers and the needs of immigrants fleeing violence, government instability and poverty in their native countries. The failure to achieve these reforms is beyond the purview of this report. However, there is little doubt that the number of undocumented immigrants on Long Island and elsewhere can be traced to this failure to enact needed changes in U.S. immigration laws.

Meanwhile, immigrants play a critical role in Long Island’s economy, as they do elsewhere in the United States. A groundbreaking 2008 report by the Hagedorn Foundation and Adelphi University concluded:104

“As workers, consumers, and taxpayers, immigrants—documented as well as undocumented—make important contributions to the Long Island economy. Immigrant Long Islanders added $10.6 billion to total Long Island output and generated an estimated 82,000 jobs in 2006 as a result of their consumer spending. Their overrepresentation among ‘prime working age’ people further suggests that immigrants are an economically productive force on Long Island. In addition, Long

102 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/suffolkcountynewyork

103 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/county/36103

104 Torras, Mariano. “Strengthening Long Island: The Economic Contributions of Immigrants to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, The Hagedorn Foundation, 2008, p. 3.

Island immigrants contribute positively to local government budgets. This study finds that immigrants contribute $2,305 more per resident to local revenues than they receive in local expenditures on education, health care, and corrections. The magnitude of the figure strongly suggests that both documented and undocumented immigrants are net contributors to the Long Island economy.”

Today, immigrants can be seen throughout the Suffolk County economy, owning small businesses, working in hospitals, restaurants, retail, landscaping and so much more, often doing difficult and essential jobs such as farm work, that native-born Americans refuse to do.

Despite their important contributions to the Long Island economy, many immigrant workers

are suffering. Sandra Dunn, Associate Director of OLA of Eastern Long Island, described their struggles in her June 2nd testimony to the Commission:105

“Work for East End immigrants … is highly seasonal and dependent on industries such as landscaping, housekeeping, farming, nurseries, wineries, restaurants and construction [that] provide a tremendous amount of work in the summer, so that people who work cleaning houses, for example, typically work not from dawn until dusk but from dawn until midnight. They … have no choice but to work these insanely long hours because they have to earn enough money to feed their families and pay the rent and the bills for the rest of the year when work is scare or dries up altogether.”

The Unique Struggles of Undocumented Immigrant Workers

Because they lack legal status, undocumented immigrants often work in a shadow, underground Long Island cash economy. Ms. Dunn, whose

agency provides supportive services to immigrants, observed that COVID has had a particularly detrimental impact on immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants because they were “not eligible for government benefits.106 Thus, undocumented immigrants who lost their jobs or had their hours reduced due to COVID were not eligible for New York State Unemployment Insurance or any of the federal government’s pandemic relief subsidies. They

105 Testimony of Sandra Dunn, Associate Director of OLA of Eastern Long Island, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, June 2, 2022.

106 Ibid.

were on their own, relying on local charities such as food pantries or outreach centers with programs such as OLA to make ends meet.

Ms. Dunn pointed out that during COVID, OLA, “like many other organizations, has been distributing supermarket gift cards as well as providing cash assistance with rent, utilities, and other urgent expenses totaling over $300,000 to hundreds of community members, including hundreds of children.”107 In 2021, New York State created a $2.1 billion Excluded Workers Fund for workers, primarily undocumented immigrants, who received no government COVID supports, but the fund was exhausted in just eight weeks.

Valery Felix, an intern at SEPA Mujer, a Latina immigrant-rights organization, in her June 2nd testimony to the Commission, noted that “throughout the pandemic, immigrants made up much of the population of essential workers in many industries. This meant they were at higher risk of becoming ill, yet they did not qualify for government economic help or health- care coverage making it likely that they did not seek health care during COVID and/or waited until their physical conditions severely deteriorated before trying to access health care.”108

Ms. Dunn concluded that today “families and individuals we have been helping have not recovered from the unemployment or underemployment they have experienced since the start of the pandemic.” For example, during COVID, federal and state eviction moratoria were imposed, yet Ms. Dunn reported that East End landlords “are behaving worse than ever, trying to evict people illegally.”109 This may be due to the shortage of rental housing reported above, which is even more acute on the East End where housing costs are higher than other parts of Suffolk County.

Nadia Marina Molina, Co-Executive Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) whose agencies services largely undocumented immigrant day laborers, reported in her May 26th testimony to the Commission:110

“Day laborers – men and women looking for employment in open-air markets by the side of the road, at busy intersections, in front of home-improvement stores, and in other public areas, are a common sight throughout the United States and in Suffolk County. Day laborers provide an essential service to the US labor market by meeting the demand for an affordable, flexible, and … on-call workforce for construction, landscaping, domestic work, and home improvement industries. In addition, day laborers have played a vital role in disaster relief efforts throughout the country in places like New York after Hurricane Sandy and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Day laborers, like many other low-wage workers, sustain and build the wealth of others in Suffolk County and the country.”

107 Ibid.

108 Testimony of Valery Felix, Sepa Mujer, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

109 Ibid.

110 Testimony of Nadia Marin Molina, Co-Executive Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, at the Welfare to Work Commission’s hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

Ms. Marina Molin further elaborated on the struggles of undocumented day laborers:111

“Due to the informal nature of day-laborer market, day laborers are also

vulnerable to many threats at their work sites. On any given day, hundreds of thousands of day laborers around the country are in danger of suffering workplace injuries, being exposed to dangerous or toxic workplace conditions, and rampant wage theft. In addition, as most day laborers in the United

States are immigrants, a significant number of whom are undocumented, they face many

barriers in accessing essential services such as medical care and legal assistance. Day laborers are often underpaid, with some

paid less than the federal minimum wage. Median salaries for day laborers around the country are $15,000 a year, far below a living wage especially for the two-thirds of day laborers who are supporting families on their income.”

Ms. Marin Molin noted that undocumented immigrants are especially vulnerable to employer exploitation because they know “that when workers attempt to enforce their rights to a minimum wage, overtime, or a safe workplace, [the employers] can call ICE, or threaten to do so, in order to make their problem disappear.” She concluded that “immigrant workers face an untenable choice: report workers’ rights violations and lose their jobs, endanger their families, and face deportation, or accept exploitation and abuse in order to live and work another day. No one should have to make that decision.”112

Noemi Sanchez, Regional Coordinator of Rural and Migrant Industries that serves East End farmworkers, told a similar story of “the workers in the agricultural industry… who were the forgotten ones, and ignored

… [working] up to 60 or sometimes 80 hours a week

[for] minimum wage. Some of them have no transportation [or] have to wait more than an hour to take a bus.”113

Ms. Marin Molina concluded her statement with this dire observation about the plight of undocumented day laborers:114

111 Ibid.

112 Ibid.

113 Testimony of Noemi Sanchez, Regional Coordinator of Rural and Migrant Industries, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, June 2, 2022.

“Finally, day laborers face these challenges in a context where their rights as immigrants and workers are under constant attack. Many anti-immigrant policies have already taken hold, and migrant communities also now report an increase in hate crimes and incidents as nativist organizations are further emboldened by political positions that reaffirm their hate. In Suffolk County, we saw last September, for example, a man who picked up three different day laborers in Farmingville, NY, who assumed they were being taken to work, drove them away and attacked them, attempted to choke and run them down with the car. In October, members of the Proud Boys, a far right, fascist group of white nationalists, marched through the streets of Patchogue and Bay Shore.”

‌Poverty and the Criminal-Justice System

In a telling comment during his June 2nd testimony, Long Island Housing Services Executive Director Ian Wilder stated that people with criminal convictions should be

named as a “protected class” in New York State anti- housing discrimination law.115

Richard, a member of the public who also testified on June 2nd and who asked that his last name not be published because he has a criminal record, said:116

“No matter how smart you are, no matter how attractive you may be and no matter how valuable your opinion, you will always be judged based on your criminal history. No matter what, you will always come second to a person who doesn’t have a criminal record. Whenever something goes wrong, you will always be the first one that is accused and even if you do make it, you will always wind up scorned in the eyes of the people who do not have a criminal record.”

The Lack of Government Supports for Formerly- Incarcerated People

Despite the prejudices he faces, Richard is trying to pick himself up and has enrolled in a college program. Serena Liguori, Executive Director of New Hour for Women and Children, a nonprofit that serves formerly-incarcerated

women and their families, stated in her June 2nd testimony that there is a direct correlation between criminalization, housing crises and poverty. She noted that women with criminal convictions often are placed in shelters because they cannot find housing – sometimes because landlords will not rent to people with a criminal history – sometimes far from their families and

114 Marin-Molina, Op. Cit.

115 Wilder, Op. Cit.

116 Testimony of Richard at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk County poverty, June 2, 2022. Executive D

support systems. In a county where housing opportunities are very limited for low-income people, she noted that formerly incarcerated people live with an especially grave form of housing instability.117

To compound their housing problems, Ms. Liguori noted that formerly incarcerated women are often placed in shelter housing upon release from jail, somewhat stabilize themselves, find a job and then for no apparent reason are required to relocate much further from their place of employment. This results in the loss of their job as they often walk to work or take public transportation by bus, waiting hours to get to work which is often an hour car ride from their original shelter location on Long Island, if they were to have access to a car. 118

The website of New Hour for Women and Children defines their mission to:119

“Empower justice impacted women and provide successful support for mothers and children. We recognize the critical role mothers play—often as the primary caretakers for their children. We understand the need for specialized support for mothers whose pathways to prison or jail are often tied to domestic violence or substance abuse. By providing parenting skills, work skills, and wellness programs during and after incarceration, we aim to give women the tools needed to become powerful change agents for themselves, their community and their children.”

Ms. Liguori stated that there are very few government programs that make their way to Long Island to specifically assist formerly incarcerated people with transportation and resources. She said that the Long Island’s recidivism rate averages 65% for formerly incarcerated people who do not receive help, whereas women who are supported by her agency have a recidivism rate of 2%.120

Ms. Liguori also recommended that there be a presumption against the incarceration of pregnant people by the courts, resorting to incarcerating a mother and infant only as a very last resort.

Hanna Thomas, age 64, told her story of post-incarceration frustration, at a Commission November 2nd focus group in Bellport. Ms. Thomas spent six months in jail for what she claimed was a false felony drug conviction. Upon release, she tried for five years to secure a New York State Certificate of Relief and Certificate of Good Conduct which would have enabled her to fully reenter the workforce as a nursing assistant. “I called every month, then every week, to get my documents,” Ms. Thomas said. During this time, she did any kind of work she could find – day laborer and minimum wage jobs. Her conviction also caused her to lose her nursing

117 Testimony of Serena Liguori, Executive Director of New Hour for Women and Children, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, June 2, 2022.

118 Ibid.

119 https://www.newhourli.org/about-us

120 Liguori, Op. Cit.

assistant license which could only be restored once she received a state certificate of relief. “The system is absurd” Ms. Thomas said, “Then people wonder why young men go back to jail.”121

Monique Cobb, who also spoke at the November 2nd focus group, added, “This happened to my aunt. Our family had to pitch in to help her out,” which, she said, caused them to be held back as they provided her with financial assistance while she was unable to work after release from jail. “Without family, you are out on the street, which explains the high recidivism rate” among former jail inmates.122

Claire Deroche testified at the Commission’s June

2nd hearing about legal surcharges, another aspect of the criminal-justice system that burdens low-income people accused of breaking the law. These surcharges are “fees attached to every conviction in New York State, from minor violations to felonies.… Depending on the type of conviction, a single mandatory surcharge can amount to hundreds of dollars.” Ms. Deroche added, “In addition to the mandatory fees, many charges come with a mandatory minimum fine, meaning that judges cannot consider someone’s ability to pay. Ms. Deroche cited a report that analyzed these surcharges which concluded that

.

Carly Sommers, a staff attorney at Nassau/Suffolk Law Services, also testified about poverty and the criminal-justice system in her testimony on June 2nd. She began her testimony by quoting President George W. Bush, “America is the land of second chances, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.” Ms. Sommers noted that “crimes are the result of social problems. Places where there is high unemployment, high poverty, high homelessness and low social mobility are places of high crime.” She went on to state that the United States comprises 5% of the world’s population but has 25% of the world’s prison

‌Incarceration by ZIP Code

Not surprisingly, the jail population of Suffolk County reflects the patterns of racial and ethnic discrimination identified above in this report. The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office monthly Inmate Demographics report for March 2022 found that, out of a total jail population of 846 inmates, 387 or 46 % were Black even though Blacks constitute only 9 % of Suffolk’s population. The Hispanic jail population (Hispanic, Black Hispanic and White Hispanic) in March of 2022 was 41% even though Hispanics constitute only 21% of Suffolk County’s population.125

121 Testimony of Hanna Thomas at the Welfare to Work Commission focus group at the EOC-LI Bellport center.. November 2, 2022.

122 Testimony of Monique Cobb at the Welfare to Work Commission focus group at the EOC-LI Bellport center, November 2, 2022.

123 Testimony of Claire Deroche at the Welfare to Work Commission public hearing on poverty, June 2nd, 2022.

124 Testimony of Carly Sommers, Staff attorney for Nassau Suffolk law Services at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on poverty, June 2, 2022.

125 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/suffolkcountynewyork and https://www.suffolkcountysheriffsoffice.com/demographics

Similarly, the Sheriff’s Inmate Demographic report Found that the ten Suffolk towns with the largest number of inmates were primarily low-income communities with high concentrations of people color:126

The High Costs of Incarceration

Thus, the burdens of poverty in segregated communities such as poor education or housing instability or inferior health care lead in too many cases to incarceration for Blacks and Hispanics followed by a post-incarceration period of neglect that results in recidivism. Poor mental-health treatment is a major factor in incarceration. The Commission’s 2018 report on supportive housing found “one snapshot analysis revealed that 579 of the 1,184 Suffolk County Jail inmates (49%) had referrals to the Mental Health Unit,” partly because community mental- health services were inadequate and had failed to provide appropriate treatment for many of these future inmates.127

While the costs of the County’s incarceration rates are high for communities of color, they are also high for the larger Suffolk County community. A Vera Institute report on Suffolk County jails found that, in 2020, on average there were 570 inmates in Suffolk County jails each costing Suffolk $347 to house them each day or $197,790 a day. The Suffolk County jail budget for 2019 was $137,230,230. It should be noted that due to bail reform which allowed for the release of people accused of non-violent crimes pending their trials, the jail population fell by 42 % in 2020 compared with 2019.128 This fall in population has already begun to climb to pre-bail numbers however.

126 https://www.suffolkcountysheriffsoffice.com/demographics

127 Welfare to Work Commission. “Finding Homes for Our Most Vulnerable Neighbors: The Need for Supportive and Affordable Housing in Suffolk County”, 2018. P. 7.

128 https://www.vera.org/downloads/nys-jails-fact-sheets-2021/suffolk_2021-02-10-205804.pdf

Public-Policy Implications for Suffolk County

There is nothing more frustrating for county officials than to be saddled with problems that result from the inaction or poor policy decisions by the state and federal governments.

In the case of America’s broken immigration laws, the two-decade failure to enact Comprehensive Immigration Reform that would allow much-needed immigrant workers to enter this country legally has filtered down to create numerous problems for Suffolk County. For example, about ten years ago, Sr. Margaret Smyth, who testified at the June 2nd hearing, told Commission Chair Richard Koubek that several police chiefs on the East End approached her to ask how she could advocate for drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants. The chiefs said that they knew the immigrants played a critical role in the local farm economy and that their officers were disrupting that economy by issuing tickets to undocumented immigrants caught driving without a license.

Fortunately, in 2019, New York State adopted the Green Light Law that permitted undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver’s license. However, these essential workers continue to be exploited, ignored and abused in the absence of federal immigration reform laws that would grant them legal status.

Similarly, New York State’s criminal-justice system provides insufficient help to formerly- incarcerated citizens, thereby creating situations where they repeat criminal acts and wind up back in the costly prison system.

Suffolk Sheriff Errol Toulon has introduced a number of programs to reduce recidivism. One program is the Council for Unity, an education and outreach program that works to keep incarcerated individuals from gang life, and to change the culture of violence in prisons and the lives of inmates inside them. Another anti-recidivism program in the Suffolk County Jail is the Sheriff’s Addiction Treatment Program (SATP), an intensive substance abuse treatment initiative designed for incarcerated individuals with a range of criminal charges, all of which correlate to their substance use disorders. And there are 20 community-based programs to help incarcerated and formerly incarcerated persons avoid recidivism such as the New Hour program reported above.129 Yet, the recidivism rate for New York State remains high, at 40.9%130 and, as noted in Ms. Liguori’s testimony above, 65% for those who do not receive community-based anti-recidivism help.

Also, as noted above in this report, Long Island’s segregated housing, educational and health- care systems create serious health and educational inequities for low-income people, especially those who are Black and/or Hispanic. For too many children of color, for example, failed local schools are a pipeline to prison, costing local taxpayers enormous amounts of money for the Suffolk County jail system that would have been better spent on quality local schools and community-based mental-health treatment centers.

‌Return to Table of Contents

129 https://www.suffolkcountysheriffsoffice.com/the-resource-center

130 https://bjafactsheets.iir.com/State/NY

Part VIII

Problematic Government Programs for Low-Income People

America’s Work Ethic

Government responses to the needs of low-income people and to the structural causes of poverty were a core focus of the 2022 poverty hearings and focus groups, as well as the on-going work of the Commission since its founding in 2003. As noted above, one major impediment to government supports for people in need is America’s deeply ingrained work ethic and corresponding belief in individual initiative and self-sufficiency.

Unlike most industrial nations, the United States provides a minimal safety net for its citizens, rooted in this ethic of self-reliance which challenges the very idea that in a land of great wealth and opportunity, anyone would even need financial support from the government. As Jason DeParle noted above, the increased funding for low-income families during COVID, which significantly but temporarily reduced childhood poverty in America, was a major departure from American norms and business as usual.

In the United States a generation ago, President Bill Clinton’s promise to “end welfare as we know it” assumed that income supports to people in need generate indigence. Accordingly, his administration’s so-called “welfare reform” emphasized “work first” and drastically reduced benefits durations to five years while introducing stiffer eligibility requirements for Public Assistance. At the same time, social programs began to include mechanisms to compel labor-market participation, by cutting benefits for adults who proved unable or unwilling to find work. The very name of one key new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), emphasized the expectation that support would not be indefinite.

Today, the public-policy fixation on dependency and its

consequences is no less acute. Following a new directive by the Trump administration, sixteen states announced or introduced work requirements as a condition of eligibility for Medicaid. According to the administration’s statement on the future of the safety net in the U.S., the goal is to “lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence.”

One recurring theme of this report is the deep bias woven throughout American culture that people who are poor are somehow personally responsible for their own poverty. The very title of the 1996 “welfare reform” law was “The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act,” (PRWORA), suggesting that welfare recipients are irresponsible and unwilling to work. This despite the fact that a research study of welfare mothers published by Rutgers University sociologist Kathryn Edin in 1995, shortly before 1996 “welfare reform” was enacted, found that:131

“The respondents clearly relied on outside income and/or

in-kind contributions to make ends meet. When interviewed, almost half (46 %) were engaged in covert work to meet their

expenses. Approximately two-fifths (39% of the sample) worked off the books or under a false identity to generate this additional income.”

Laziness and various “bad” personal behaviors are assumed to be the root cause of poverty with little attention or credibility given to systems, structures and circumstances – like mental illness, or racial discrimination or the lack of affordable housing – which also cause poverty, and which sometimes have little to do with individual choices. Stigmatizing low-income people and thereby blaming them for their own poverty is endemic to America’s governmental responses to poverty.

‌Welfare Reform’s Work Requirements

The Empire Justice Center, based in Albany and on Long Island, which conducts research on public policies related to low-income people, provided the Commission with a detailed summary of federal work requirements.132 The federal welfare regulations now require each state to maintain a work participation rate (WPR) for Public Assistance clients. The WPR requires states to have a target percentage of families participating in TANF engaged in “countable” work activities for at least 30 hours per week for single-parent households (20 hours per week for single parents with children under age 6) and 35 hours per week for two-parent households (not including households in which a parent has a disability). 42 U.S.C. § 607.

The target WPR for states is 50% (90% for two-parent families), subject to certain discounts as defined by 42 U.S.C. § 607(b)(3). States get a “caseload reduction credit” (CRC) to their WPR based on two factors. First, they obtain a credit based on how much their caseload of cash assistance participants has declined. States also receive a credit for state spending on basic assistance above the minimum required under the PRWORA, called the “maintenance of effort” (MOE) requirement.

131 Edin, Kathryn. “The myths of dependence and self-sufficiency: Women, welfare, and low-wage work,” Focus

17:2, Fall/Winter 1995

132 Antos, Susan, Jessica Radbord, and Cheryl Keshner. Written “Testimony to the Suffolk Welfare to Work Commission,” June 23, 2022,

Under New York State law, all applicants and recipients of Public Assistance are required to “participate in work activities” pursuant to 18 NYCRR 385.2(a), unless they are found exempt due to age, disability, or other reasons outlined in 18 NYCRR 385.2(b).

“Engaged in work” is defined by local social services officials, in accordance with the local social services district’s local plan, as prepared in accordance with section 385.10. 18 NYCRR 385.2(f). Pursuant to section 385.10(a)(5), the plan must provide a description of the work activities that will be available in the district, and how the district will satisfy the WPR – but it does not have to include a minimum number of work hours in a narrowly defined set of work activities at the level of the individual participants.

New York State regulations (and the federally approved State Plan for the TANF program),133 define all of the following as “work activities”:

• Unsubsidized employment (full- or part-time work not subsidized by TANF funds);

• Subsidized private- or public-sector employment;

• Work experience in the public- and non-profit sectors;

• On-the-job training;

• Job search and job readiness assistance;

• Community service;

• Vocational educational training;

• Job skills training directly related to employment;

• Education directly related to employment, including but not limited to attending secondary school or a high school equivalency program;

• Provision of child care for an individual who is participating in community service;

• Certain educational and training activities (limited to no more than two years of post- secondary education); and

• Other activities set forth in a local district (i.e. SCDSS) plan.

  
  

  If New York State fails to meet its Work Participation Rate, federal TANF funding can be reduced. This puts pressure on local departments of social services to place Public Assistance clients in work settings. In addition, a complex matrix has been established with allowable hours and time limits on certain activities. For example, education and training placements can be made for only one year.

  Since the new welfare regulations were enacted in 1996, there has been an enormous decrease in the number of people receiving Public Assistance. For example, in 1996, under the old Aid for Dependent Children welfare system, there were 5.1 million families receiving Public Assistance. By the end of 2013, there were 1.7 million families receiving welfare, a 66 % decline in cases.

  But one analyst reflected the belief held by many critics of the 1996 law in that “if the goal was to get rid of poverty, we failed. The challenges to welfare reform center on the fact that while its ‘work first’ requirements and time limits for receiving Public Assistance closed many welfare

  
  

  133 Available at https://otda.ny.gov/policy/tanf/TANF-State-Plan-2021-2023.pdf.

  cases, they forced many of the former recipients of welfare to live in poverty from which many returned to the system, or they forced others into even deeper poverty.134

  
  

  In short, the 1996 welfare law did not address the underlying personal and structural barriers to self-sufficiency.

  
  

  Critiques of the Work Requirements

  
  

  
  

  “Who deserves to have their basic needs met? Our society, for most of its history, has made distinctions between the worthy poor and those who are unworthy, from the poorhouses and jailing of ‘paupers’ in the past, to … meager Public Assistance benefits for people less attached to the workforce. … Public Assistance comes with significant strings attached, often in the form of work requirements, creating significant barriers to accessing benefits and trapping recipients in long-term poverty.”

  
  

  Empire Justice Center

In their written testimony to the Commission, the Empire Justice Center concluded that the work requirements of the 1996 welfare law do not work. Researchers Susan Antos, and Jessica Radbord, Senior Attorneys and Cheryl Keshner, Senior Paralegal/Community Advocate and a member of the Commission, stated:135

“Who deserves to have their basic needs met? Our society, for most of its history, has made distinctions between the worthy poor and those who are unworthy, from the poorhouses and jailing of ‘paupers’ in the past, to … meager Public Assistance benefits for people less attached to the workforce. … Public Assistance comes with significant strings attached, often in the form of work requirements, creating significant barriers to accessing benefits and trapping recipients in long-term poverty.”

The Empire Justice researchers noted that welfare reform of the 1990s136 firmly drew a line between the deserving and undeserving poor, with work behavior as the ultimate test of whether a person or family would be afforded anything close to the minimum needed to survive. And this has led to a rise in inequality between those who are able to maintain work, and those who are not.137 Temporary Assistance provides such little cash assistance that it fails to meet basic needs while setting strict sanctions for failing to comply with rules, creating administrative barriers to accessing supports, while imposing complicated work requirements.

The Empire Justice researchers further noted that people receiving Public Assistance typically face significant barriers to paid employment, so forcing them into work experiences without

134 Matthews, Dylan. “The Legacy of the 1996 Welfare Reform.” Vox, June 20, 2016

135 Antos, Susan, et. Al, Op. Cit.

136 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), Pub. L. No. 104-193, ended the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, one of the country’s principal safety nets for poor families.

137 Danziger, Sandra. “The Decline of Cash Welfare and Implications for Social Policy and Poverty”, Annual Review of Sociology (July 8, 2010), available at https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102644.

addressing those barriers and without meaningfully exploring their own goals does not lead to long-term economic stability.

The Empire Justice observation was corroborated by SCDSS Deputy Commissioner Christine Fellini at the May 26th hearing when, asked why more Public Assistance clients were not placed in work, she responded that about three quarters of them are work exempt, most due to multiple barriers to employment such physical or mental disability or substance use disorders.138

SCDSS Temporary Assistance Work Exempt Adults, August, 2022

Work activity exemptions include individuals who are unable to participate in a work activity due to the following whether short term or long term:

• Disabled

• Temporary illness (1-12 months)

• Needed in the home to care for a family member

• Single parent or caretaker of a child under 1 year old

• Substance abuser in treatment

• Pregnant and within 30 days of EDC

• Child under 16

• Advanced age (60 or older)139 The Empire Justice analysis concludes:140

  “Research has shown that physical and mental health conditions that limit an individual’s ability to work or limit the amount or kind of work the individual can do are much more common among public-benefit recipients than among the general population.141 Many also face literacy and learning challenges. In this context, forcing people to work an arbitrary minimum number of hours at menial jobs and with little educational opportunity does nothing to help them achieve long-term economic prosperity. Instead, it does immediate and irreparable harm by ultimately denying them the basic assistance they need to make ends meet if they are unable to comply with strict

  
  

  138 Fellini testimony, Op. Cit

  139 Email from Vincent Rothaar, Assistant Division Administrator, Suffolk County Department of Social Services to Richard Koubek, Chair of the Welfare to Work Commission, December 6. 2022.

  140 Antos, et. al. Op. Cit.

  141 Pamela L. Loprest and Elaine Maag, “Disabilities among TANF Recipients: Evidence from the NHIS”, Urban Institute, May 2009, http://www.urban.org/research/publication/disabilities-among-tanf-recipients-evidence-nhis. (This study also includes data on SNAP recipients.)

  work requirements…. Behavioral science does not support imposition of work requirements.”

  
  

  “Scientific evidence shows that work requirements actually make it harder for individuals to find and maintain employment. Work requirements are the wrong approach for three main reasons:

  (1) burdensome and complicated rules increase cognitive costs of participating in Public Assistance programs; (2) people in deep poverty often already have limited resources, time, and attention, and work requirements add more stress and complications to their already complex lives; and (3) work requirements feed into the misguided idea that Public Assistance recipients do not work or are working less than full time because they do not want to work, rather than addressing their barriers to employment.”

  
  

  Empire Justice Center

Colleen Merlo, CEO of the Association for Mental Health and Wellness and a member of the Commission, provided this summary of work impediments and other barriers to self-sufficiency faced by people with mental-health and substance- use challenges, when she testified at the June 2,nd, 2022, Commission hearing:142

• Individuals with a mental disorder are much less likely to be employed, and the employment gap increased sharply with the severity of the person’s mental illness.143

• Those with a severe mental illness are seven times more likely to be unemployed and those with a moderate illness are three times more likely to be unemployed, respectively, than those with no disorder. 144

• Almost half of individuals receiving federal disability income have a diagnosed mental illness.

• One in three new disability benefit claims is a result of a mental-health disorder. Due to the early onset of many mental-health related diagnoses, these individuals tend to be younger and therefore spend more years receiving benefits.

• Many people who live with serious mental illness are underemployed; about 70% who hold college degrees earn less than $10 an hour.

• An estimated one third to one half of people who live with serious mental illness live at or near the FPL.

• 39% of the homeless population have some form of mental-health problem.145

• An estimated 60% of individuals with mental illness want to work.

142 Merlo, Op. Ct.

143 Brouwers, E.P.M. “Social stigma is an underestimated contributing factor to unemployment in people with mental illness or mental health issues: position paper and future directions”. BMC Psychol 8, 36 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-00399-0

144 Ibid.

145 Ibid.

Ms. Merlo’s testimony drew from research demonstrating that work is just one aspect to end the cycle of poverty, but it is an important one. “The barriers to work for people with mental illness and substance abuse are complex. The reasons for the above statistics are varied; they include stigma, discrimination and misinformation about mental illness, cost concerns, lack of sufficient training and supports, and fear of losing needed benefits by the individuals themselves. Solutions include increased community education, better funding for supported employment programs and other vocational training, and more flexible disability benefits eligibility for individuals venturing into the workplace.”146

The Empire Justice researchers further observed:147

“Scientific evidence shows that work requirements actually make it harder for individuals to find and maintain employment.148 Work requirements are the wrong approach for three main reasons: (1) burdensome and complicated rules increase cognitive costs of participating in Public Assistance programs; (2) people in deep poverty often already have limited resources, time, and attention, and work requirements add more stress and complications to their already complex lives; (3) work requirements feed into the misguided idea that Public Assistance recipients do not work or are working less than full time because they do not want to work, rather than addressing their barriers to employment.”

Failure to comply with SCDSS work requirements often leads to harsh sanctions, resulting in a pro-rata reduction of cash and/or SNAP benefits. Sanctions cause individuals and families a great hardship and contribute to hunger and housing instability. Outside of New York City, an individual who has more than one work sanction is generally not provided with the opportunity to comply with the work rules until the sanction has run its course, which could be for as long as six months, meaning a family could have reduced SNAP benefits and experience increased hunger during the sanction.

In addition, the federal work requirements discourage education and vocational training since the law’s premise is “work first.” The Commission has long argued that a major pathway to self- sufficiency is education and training, and the Commission has worked with SCDSS and SDOL to expand these opportunities. For example, in 2015, the Commission launched a pilot project with SCDSS and Suffolk County Community College (SCCC) in which SCDSS TANF clients in the SCDOL Suffolk Works Employment Program (SWEP) could receive a work assignment at SCCC while they pursue courses there. The pilot also included opportunities for SWEP clients to place their children in the SCCC day-care center while they worked and studied.

Over the four-year course of the pilot, enrollments of SWEP clients in SCCC rose from 14 in 2014 before the pilot began to a peak of 32 in 2015. The number of SWEP clients enrolled at SCCC had settled to about 21 in 2019, a 66 % increase since 2014. However, this was a small

146 Ibid.

147 Antos, Op. Cit.

148 Neuert, Harrison, et al., “Work Requirements Don’t Work, A behavioral science perspective” (March 2019), available at http://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ideas42-Work-Requirements-Paper.pdf.

fraction of the total number of SWEP clients. As the Commission concluded in its report to the Legislature on this project:149

“Federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) regulations permit only one year of Vocational Training as a countable activity. Other educational activities require being paired with employment or a work experience activity. Since the 1996 federal ‘welfare reform’ law was adopted, TANF has been primarily a ‘work-first’, not an educational program, with the goal of reducing Public Assistance caseloads, not reducing poverty and encouraging self-sufficiency in Public Assistance recipients. In short, federal TANF regulations prioritize work placements – even in low-wage, unskilled jobs – rather than education or Vocational Training.”

The Inadequate New York State Shelter Allowance

Another public-policy area that fails to meet the needs of low-income people is the New York State shelter allowance. As the Empire Justice Center reported in their written testimony to the Commission,150 “Public Assistance grants fail to provide adequate assistance, and in particular, the shelter allowance does not come anywhere near to covering the cost of housing. In every county in New York State, Public Assistance grants are less than 50% of the federal poverty limit, and the shelter allowance is far below Fair Market Rents. Largely as a result of this failure to provide an adequate shelter allowance, New York State has one of the largest populations of people experiencing homelessness in the country, accounting for 16% of all people experiencing homelessness in the United States. In Long Island, when the number of people experiencing homelessness was tallied in January 2021, over 3,000 individuals were unhoused,151 including 1,166 children.”152

Empire Justice reported that the Public Assistance grant is comprised of two primary parts: (1) a shelter allowance, which varies in amount by county, household size, and whether there are children in the household; (2) a grant to meet other needs, which is based only on household size and is the same in every county. Throughout the State, Public Assistance grants are insufficient to meet needs, but in high-cost areas like Suffolk County, that insufficiency is even more acute. The Public Assistance grant for a family of three in Suffolk County is only $836 per month. As demonstrated in the chart below, that is only 44% of the federal poverty level:153

Suffolk County Public Assistance as a Percent of Federal Poverty Level

149 Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk Cunt Legislature. “Report on the Suffolk Works Employment Program /Suffolk County Community College Pilot Program ,” September 18, 2019.

150 Antos et. al, Op. Cit.

151 https://www.lihomeless.org/facts-figures.

152 https://www.lihomeless.org/_files/ugd/06e3d7_c0421ba3220d44c7a57e31a5fc27244a.pdf.

153 Antos, et. Al, Op. Cit

Empire Justice further reported that the allowance is so low that it is not sufficient to cover rent for the vast majority of safe and habitable rental units in the state. As indicated by the chart below, in Suffolk County, the shelter allowance for a family of three is only $447 per month,154 and is low for families of all sizes:

Public Assistance Shelter Allowances in Suffolk County

In contrast, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has calculated that the Fair Market Rent155 for a two-bedroom apartment in Suffolk County is $2,065,156 more than four times the shelter allowance:

Suffolk County Shelter Allowance Compared to HUD FMR

And the situation is only getting worse. Based on current inflation, as well as the lack of rent regulations on Long Island, the cost of rental housing is skyrocketing.

Empire Justice also noted that data from the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) shows that in February 2022, the shelter allowance was not sufficient to cover rent for 66% of the individuals and households on Public Assistance in Suffolk County renting an unsubsidized unit. And for 41% of those individuals and households, the shelter allowance was not sufficient to pay half the rent.157 Even if a household were to use the

154 18 NYCRR 352.3(a)(1).

155 Fair Market Rents (FMRs) are set annually by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. They reflect the cost of housing meeting basic standards of decency. The FMR includes utilities except telephone and cable. In most cases FMRs are set at the 40th percentile of rents, meaning that 40% of the housing in a given area is less expensive than the FMR.

156 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research , Fair Market Rents , https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/fmr.html#2022_data

157 This data was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request obtained by the Empire Justice Center and is on file in our Albany office.

remainder of its Public Assistance grant to pay the rent, they will still not have enough money to pay Fair Market Rates, and if they use all of their Public Assistance grant to pay rent, they would be left with nothing to cover their other costs of daily living, including phone, transportation, medical co-pays, and household essentials like toilet paper and cleaning products. Charities cannot afford to pick up all of the slack. Because the shelter allowance is so low, Public Assistance households are likely to fall behind in rent and face housing instability, eviction, and possible homelessness.

Empire Justice concluded:158

“This is not only bad social policy; we do also not believe it passes legal muster. In 1990, the New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled that New York’s Social Services Law requires that shelter allowances be adequate to maintain a family with children in their home.159 Nevertheless, shelter allowances have not been increased since 2004, and continue to fall further behind the actual cost of housing. The state has authorized a patchwork of shelter supplement programs to attempt to make up for the insufficiency of the Public Assistance shelter allowance, but these do not come close to adequately addressing the problem.”

Suffolk County has two shelter supplement plans (SSPs): one for families with children and one for single individuals and childless couples. Suffolk’s SSPs provide some coverage of rent arrears to prevent homelessness, and partial payment of rent. Unfortunately, the amount of the supplement is still insufficient to afford a rental unit at standard Fair Market Rents. Pursuant to Suffolk’s SSP, a parent with two children who is eligible for a shelter supplement of up to $671, must pay their $447 shelter allowance toward rent, and contribute another $250 out of the remainder of their Public Assistance grant, leaving them with only $139 to pay for their other basic needs for an entire month (assuming they have no other income). At a total of $1,368 for rent, this is still only 66% of the Fair Market Rent for a 2 bedroom in Suffolk County ($2,065).160

And for singles and childless couples, the Suffolk County shelter supplement is still insufficient to cover market rates for housing and has several restrictions on its use. First, it is durationally limited at three years of assistance, even if the recipient is still on Temporary Assistance.

Further, it only covers rent for “a rooming house (with kitchen privileges) or a furnished room with kitchen privileges,” a housing option that may be difficult to find and a challenging environment for some tenants. And as noted previously, the benefits are low:161

158 Antos, et. al. Op. Cit.

159 Jiggetts v. Grinker, 75 N.Y.2d 411

160 Antos, et. al, Op. Cit.

161 Ibid.

To its credit, SCDSS now pays $625 per month for “hard-to-house” singles, up from $309 per month, but securing a unit is likely to continue to be a challenge. Even though Suffolk DSS has increased its shelter supplements, individuals and families on Public Assistance continue to struggle to secure housing, and as a result, may experience homelessness for months or even years. Suffolk County pays an enormous cost to shelter homeless families and individuals.

SCDSS reported that the cost of providing emergency housing in 2017 was $3,975 for per month for a single individual, and $6,195 per month for couples. In 2016, SCDSS reported that the cost of providing shelter for families was $5,362 per month. These exorbitant costs for temporary housing have undoubtedly increased since then.162

Empire Justice concluded163:

“Unfortunately, even the combination of the Public Assistance shelter allowance and a shelter supplement is insufficient to allow Suffolk County households to access decent housing. Suffolk’s Shelter Supplement Plan straightforwardly concedes that the shelter allowance for single individuals is ‘unaffordable’ and is not sufficient even to rent a room with kitchen privileges. Even with the shelter supplement, many have no choice but to share single rooms, which may be particularly challenging for those with health issues or a history of trauma. Landlords frequently engage in rent gouging on substandard units, knowing that these renters have no other options.

Similarly, struggling Long Island families who cannot afford the rent on their own often share overcrowded apartments, sometimes renting a single room for an entire family and sharing the kitchen and bathroom with complete strangers. Others pay rent to live in poorly ventilated sheds, garages and basements. Immigrants are particularly subject to exploitation by unscrupulous landlords. These arrangements are often dangerous and untenable, and low-income individuals and families

thus find themselves having to move frequently, resulting in job loss or the disruption of their children’s education.”

162 Ibid.

163 Ibid.

Disability Assistance - A Case Study of Rigid Government Regulations

In its 2012 poverty report, the Commission profiled how rigid government regulations related to caps on the amount of earnings disabled people can realize in a given year have hampered their ability to move toward greater self-sufficiency. The Commission asked Coleen Merlo , Chief Executive Officer of the Association for Mental Health and Wellness, to revisit this issue in 2022. What follows is her report submitted as written testimony to the Commission.164

There are thousands of poor people in Suffolk County who rely on federal disability benefits under the Social Security program. As the COVID-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented economic challenges, asset tests in Public Assistance programs continue to trap people in a cycle of poverty. These tests, which require applicants and beneficiaries to have resources below a certain monetary threshold in order to qualify for benefits, have been particularly harmful for people with disabilities, whose economic condition has generally declined since the 1970s.

When someone is precluded from saving and wealth-building, how can they be expected to break the cycle of poverty? If it were not clear before the pandemic, it should be clear now, that people who lack savings are unable to weather financial storms. This pandemic laid bare the fact that policies which preclude low-income beneficiaries, mostly people with a disability, from saving and wealth building, would render these people more acutely vulnerable during crises.

The ableism myth of self-sufficiency carries real-life consequences for people living with a disability. It stigmatizes people with disabilities as lazy, deceitful, or unworthy because they seek support needed to navigate environments that are inaccessible and discriminatory against people with disabilities. The picture of “dependency” as a moral failing has historically been used to marginalize people of color, women, and, especially, those at the intersection of these two identities.

It is called the “Earnings Cliff” or the “Benefits Cliff.” And, from the perspective of a rational public policy, it makes sense. People on Social Security’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability (SSD) receive their benefits because they have disabilities that render them unable to work, either for a short period or for life. The Social Security rules allow recipients to work, and have programs to encourage paid employment, but all of these programs set a cap on what they can earn because, if they are earning what the regulations refer to as a “substantial amount” of money, they clearly should not need Social Security Disability income. The rules allow work, with limits, such as:

• Trial Work Period allows recipients of a disability benefit to “test” their ability to work for at least nine months. During this trial period, they can receive their benefits regardless of how much they earn so long as they report their income to the Social Security Administration.

  
  

  164 Written testimony submitted to the Welfare to Work Commission by Colleen Merlo, Chief Executive Officer of the Association for Mental Health and Wellness, August 11m, 2022.

• Extended Period of Eligibility which occurs after the Trial Work Period and allows the recipients to continue receiving their disability benefits for another 36 months so long as the earnings in any single month are “not substantial,” meaning they do not exceed $1,350 a month. Should the earnings exceed $1,350, the benefits stop.

• Continuation of Medicare allows for Medicare Part A coverage to continue, even if the disability benefits stop due to the earnings cap, for at least 93 months after the nine-month Trial Work Period.165

In addition, when people who receive disability benefits have employment earnings, they also generally face further penalties in the loss of Food

Stamps and, if they are in Supported Housing through a State disability office (Office of Mental Health or Office of Persons with Developmental Disabilities) or Section 8, they are required to pay 30% of such income toward their rent which is a further disincentive to work since the 30% of rent now reduces the amount of their income available for food, medication co-payments, transportation and other expenses.

Thus, the Social Security disability rules designed to prevent fraud by capping earnings actually trap some people into the Social Security Administration’s system by limiting what they can earn. And the federal programs that do exist to incentivize a return to work are so complex and onerous with drastic benefit reductions that only a small percentage of people with disabilities actually ever leave these federal programs.

‌One innovative response that Social Security has introduced that attempts to provide more flexibility in its work rules is the “Ticket to Work” program that will be profiled next.

“Ticket to Work”: An Attempt at Program Flexibility

The Commission’s 2012 report highlighted people with psychiatric disabilities who objected to what they experienced as inflexible and complex Social Security Administration (SSA) rules that penalized them for returning to work. Coleen Merlo updated the status of this program. 166

165 Social Security Administration, “Working While Disabled – How Can We Help,?” SSA Publication No. 05-10095, ICN 468625, August 2012.

166 Email from Coleen Merlo, Executive Director of the Association for Mental Health and Wellness, to Richard Koubek, Chair, Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature, November 8, 2022.

Generally speaking, for those who receive SSI (those who are disabled and have a minimal work history), the Social Security Administration withholds $1 for every $2 earned; however, a further complexity occurs when SSA implements this withhold two to four months after the individual has begun to work, thereby leaving the recipient with notice of a retroactive overpayment. SSD recipients can earn without cash penalty up to “Substantial Gainful Activity” (SGA).

At this time the SGA limit is $1,360 per month (or $16,320 a year which is slightly above the FPL of $13,590 for a single person and not nearly enough for self-sufficiency in Suffolk County) in the form of gross income which then triggers a clock of elimination of the recipient’s cash benefit if they continue to earn income above the SGA limit after nine months. The nine months in which their benefits will remain the same regardless of how much income they earn is known as the Trial Work Period (TWP). However, a Trial Work Period month is activated after earning any amount over $970 in the form of gross income. After the TWP ends, recipients are provided with two ‘grace months’ after which if they continue to earn over the SGA limit they would no longer receive their SSD benefit payment each month. Already aware of these concerns, the SSA has developed a “Ticket to Work” program to foster more flexibility and responsiveness for SSI and SSD recipients who want to work.

Earning over the SGA limit initiates the Expended Period of Eligibility which is a 3-year period where if for any reason they start earning below the SGA limit they can reclaim their SSD benefits for the same amount they were receiving beforehand.

According to the SSA “Ticket to Work” brochure, the goals of the program are to:

• Offer beneficiaries with disabilities expanded choices when seeking service and supports to enter, reenter, and/or maintain employment;

  
  

• Increase the financial independence and self-sufficiency of beneficiaries with disabilities;

  
  

  •Reduce and, whenever possible, eliminate reliance on disability benefits.

  
  

  The beneficiary does not need a paper Ticket to participate. Under this program, eligible beneficiaries with disabilities who are receiving monthly cash benefit payments are entitled to participate by signing up with an approved service provider of their choice. This can be an Employment Network (EN) or a State Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) agency. The EN/State VR agency, if they accept the Ticket assignment, will coordinate and provide appropriate services to help the beneficiary find and maintain employment. These services may be training, career counseling, vocational rehabilitation, job placement, and ongoing support services necessary to achieve a work goal.

  
  

  While participating in the Ticket to Work Program, beneficiaries can get the help they need to safely explore their work options without immediately losing their benefits and can work to find the job that is right for them. Beneficiaries also can use a combination of work incentives to

  maximize their income until they begin to learn enough to support themselves. Therefore, the individual can:

  
  

• Go to work without automatically losing disability benefits;

  
  

• Return to benefits if he or she has to stop working;

  
  

• Continue to receive health-care benefits;

  
  

• Be protected from receiving a medical continuing disability review while using the Ticket and making the expected progress with work or educational goals.

According to Ms. Merlo, the Ticket to Work Program can help reduce the barriers that exist when transitioning from full-time recovery to a full-time job and can often reduce the risk for Social Security Disability recipients taking the first step toward returning to work by allowing individuals receiving SDI or other benefits, such as Medicaid or Medicare, to keep them while they transition back into the workforce.

However, federal officials have been slow to respond to national disability advocates who have asked that the regulations be simplified. SSA recipients with disabilities often receive both SSI and SSD; for this group, the Ticket to Work rules are much more complicated. A simple fix, which has been proposed is to treat earned income in the SSI and SSD programs in exactly the same manner, preferably like the SSD program where the client’s cash is not reduced until such time as they have accumulated some money to be more self-sufficient. Such a reform would create a gradual reduction in benefits rather than an “earnings cliff,” a much more friendly policy, especially for people with disabilities who are at risk of symptoms returning and needing to focus on recovery rather than work.

The Federal Poverty Definition and the Benefits’ Cliff

The unrealistic Federal Poverty Level (FPL) definition discussed above ($27,750 for a family of four) involves more than an academic conversation about how to define poverty. The FPL is the portal for receiving government supports. Government programs need to have income limits.

But when government supportive-program limits are set against the FPL in a high cost-of-living area like Suffolk County, they eliminate thousands of people in need from important government supports.

For example, using the federal income limits for receiving SNAP (Food Stamp) households that exceed these monthly maximum net monthly income, even by a few dollars, are ineligible for the SNAP food benefit:

SNAP is open to households earning well beyond the FPL. But programs that use FPL ($27,750 for a family of four) and even programs that set the limit at 200 % of FPL ($55,500 for a family of four) omit many thousands of working-poor Suffolk residents who earn under $80,000 but still cannot make ends meet, again, as fully discussed above, because of Long Island’s high cost- of-living.

Perhaps most disturbing, these program income limits are very rigid, creating a “benefits cliff” or “earnings cliff” so that when a working-poor person, earns even $1 over the limit, they can lose vital help such as SNAP (food stamps) or their can lose the child-care subsidy.

During a September 16th focus group with teenagers in an EOC-LI focus group, a 16-year-old Brentwood High school 11th grader spoke about her single mother’s struggle to move her family of three children from a one-bedroom apartment to a more comfortable home. Her Mom worked hard, eventually earning about $40,000 a year. But the student said, once her Mom raised the family income, she lost SNAP, forcing the family to get food from their babysitter and the local church. “We ate cold pizza for an entire week.”168

In an October 3, 2022 editorial, Newsday

observed:169

“Plenty of families on Long Island earn more than the national cutoff [for supportive services] but still can’t make ends meet. In plenty of households,

167 https://otda.ny.gov/programs/snap/

168 Anonymous student 4. Welfare to Work Commission focus group on Suffolk poverty with EOC-LI teenagers, September 16, 2022. (The teenagers asked that their names not be used in the report.)

169 Newsday editorial. “Poverty measure masks LI issues,” Newsday, October 3, 2022.

adults are choosing between paying rent and buying food but don’t fall below the federal poverty line. The failure to account for the Island’s high cost-of-living hides the true story – and creates an artificially bright picture, when the poverty reality is far darker.”

Another example of the earnings cliff are the income eligibilities required to receive Medicaid. While New York State has been more generous than some other states, the eligibility for Medicaid for a family of four is only $36,908 which is about $18,000 below the true poverty level of $55,500 for Suffolk County. Thus, families earning above the $36,908 Medicaid threshold must often choose between paying for health insurance or rent or food.

Peter Coy, an editorial writer for the New York Times, pointed out how the benefits cliffs discourage work or discourage low-income people from increasing their earnings. Coy described how low-income people have to negotiate the benefits cliffs:170

“Social workers who counsel low-income workers often try to help them get past the pain of the benefits cliff by encouraging them to keep their eyes on the prize: a level of income high enough that the loss of government benefits is a worthwhile trade-off. People who feel

trapped by dependence on government benefits need moral support as well as financial support to get on a path to self-sufficiency, says Richard Barr, Vice President for strategic and organizational development at the South Carolina Center for Fathers and Families. ‘We want to be tour guides,’ he says, ‘not travel agents.’ For people about to take a job that will threaten their benefits, ‘The fear factor is difficult to overcome: Can I do it? Will they accept me? Will I stick and stay?’”

Coy further pointed out, “the benefits cliff not only discourages work; it also creates incentives for dishonesty. Residents hide income. Housing managers learn to look the other way. It doesn’t have to be this way.”171 One solution, to gradually ease recipients off of a program, rather than eliminating them as soon as they reach the earnings limit, will be discussed below in this report’s recommendations section.

Return to Table of Contents

170 Coy, Peter. “The ‘Benefits Cliff’ Discourages People From Making More Money,” New York Times, November 10, 2021.

171 Ibid.

Part IX

Helpful Community Supports for Low-Income People

‌Government Programs That Reduce Poverty

The 1996 welfare law relied primarily on work requirements that punish clients for failing to comply as well as time limits for receiving Public Assistance and other disincentives that discouraged people from seeking or remaining on Public Assistance. These rigid regulations have reduced caseload but have not reduced poverty.

Yet, since the 1990s, other non-punitive safety-net supports for low-income people were underway that have resulted in a dramatic decline in child poverty. As Jason DeParle reported in the New York Times on September 12, 2022:172

“Child poverty has fallen 59% since 1993, with need receding on nearly every front. Childhood poverty has fallen in every state, and it has fallen by about the same degree among children who are White, Black, Hispanic and Asian, living with one parent or two, and in native or immigrant households. Deep poverty, a form of especially severe deprivation, has fallen nearly as much. In 1993, nearly 28% of children were poor, meaning their households lacked the income the government deemed necessary to meet basic needs. By 2019, before temporary pandemic aid drove it even lower, child poverty had fallen to about 11%.”

DeParle’s Times article, drawn from a Child Trends comprehensive study of child poverty, found these safety net programs as major contributors to the decline in child poverty since the 1990s. Acknowledging that the American safety net is a patchwork of programs, DeParles reported that the average low-income family received nearly $18,000 in benefits, more than 40 percent of their after-tax income:173

172 DeParle, Jason. “A Quiet, Dramatic Blow to Childhood Poverty,” New York Times, September 12, 2022.

173 Ibid.

Government Safety Net Programs That Contributed to Lower Child Poverty

In a follow-up story on September 13, DeParle showed how an actual family, the Jacksons, with two parents and three children, ages 9, 5 and 2, earning $20,500 (60% of the Federal Poverty Level) benefitted from safety net programs so that their income was actually $42,600 or 137% of the Federal Poverty Level. DeParle noted that “while many critics of government aid often warn that it fosters a sense of entitlement, what is striking in the case of the Jacksons is how little entitlement they feel. He quotes Cecilia Jackson as apologizing “about being in need and describes the help as something she appreciates more than needs.

Here is how these programs helped the Jacksons:174

How Government Aid Enables One Family to Make Ends Meet

The global COVID pandemic and its attendant catastrophic collapse of the American and global economies in 2020 caused one of the largest infusions of government cash assistance into the

U.S. economy since the Great Depression. Recipients of government COVID cash assistance and COVID stimulus programs enacted by both the Trump and Biden Administrations included large corporations, small businesses, state and local governments, individuals and families.

174 DeParle, Jason.” Families Lifted by Safety Net Tell Their Stories,” New York Times, September 13, 2022.

As noted above, Jason DeParle credited these COVID funds with an “historic” decrease in poverty:175

“The aid Congress provided was immense:

the three rounds of stimulus checks, passed between March 2020 and March 2021 and provided to all but the most affluent, sent families of four more than $11,000.

Expansions of unemployment insurance reached millions of workers previously ineligible for aid and provided most of them more than they had earned on the job. In the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP—food stamps—average benefits temporarily doubled. …. As a reporter covering poverty for The New York Times,

it’s my job to keep track of these developments, but so much was happening

earlier this year that I almost missed the creation of an emergency rental aid program meant to forestall evictions [Emergency Rental Assistance Program – ERAP discussed above in this report] . It sprang into being with little notice and $46 billion, a sum that rivals the annual budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

The takeaway from these successes is that non-punitive government programs that provide direct supports to low-income families can relieve their suffering and move them toward self- sufficiency. They do not generally create dependency nor a sense of entitlement but rather help families to make ends meet, even while they still struggle.

Unfortunately, as DeParle reported in the New York Times on November 26, 2022, the six-month COVID-expanded Child Tax Credit, the most impactful program for reducing child poverty, expired, with its renewal in 2023 facing an uphill battle. The COVID-expanded credit included six monthly payments of $250 per child or $300 for those under the age of 6 plus an additional lump sum payment paid in the spring of 2022. Without the expansion, the Child Tax Credit has reverted to its original status – a $2,000 annual benefit that includes high-income families but fails to full reach those at the bottom176 earning too little to file federal taxes (under $25,100 for a two-parent family.)177

One theme that emerged from the Commission’s research, hearings and focus groups in 2012 and again in 2022 is that the official definition of poverty does not convey the realities of poverty in Suffolk County, due to this region’s high cost-of-living. A September 15, 2022, Newsday analysis of just-released 2022 U.S. Census poverty data concluded that the positive Census data showing little growth in the Federal Poverty Level on Long Island “masks a great

175 DeParle, Op. Cit, “An Historic Decrease in Poverty.”

176 DeParle, Jason. “Uphill Battle for Reviving Child Credit”, The New York Times, November 26, 2022.

177 Hrblock.com

need.” Theresa Regnante, President and CEO of United Way of Long Island who testified at the May 26th Commission hearing, told Newsday that “we have one-third of the households across Long Island who are working poor earning less than $35,000 a year which is above the poverty level …[but] who are in desperate and dire situations.” Rebecca Sanin, President and CEO of the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island, who testified at the June 2nd Commission hearing, celebrated the decline in child poverty, reported above, yet told Newsday, “ We know there are thousands of Long Islanders who were struggling before the pandemic … and were impacted more severely by the pandemic. These families require more time and more support to reach a sustainable recovery.”178

Assessing government and community-based nonprofit agency supports for Long Island’s working poor has been a major focus of the Welfare to Work Commission since its establishment in 2003 and, of course, a major focus of this and the 2012 poverty reports. The Commission received testimony from the Suffolk County Departments of Social Services, Labor and Health regarding County-administered government programs they offer supports to low-income Suffolk residents. While some programs, as discussed in the previous section of this report, have rigid federal government regulations and eligibility requirements as well as punitive policies that reflect negative stereotypes about poor people being lazy and irresponsible, many other government and community programs provide essential supports without or with fewer of these constraints.

What follows is a brief summary of County government and community-based nonprofit agency supports for low-income people.

Suffolk County Department of Social Services

In her May 26th testimony, SCDSS Deputy Commissioner Christine Fellini summarized her department’s programs that support low-income people.179

“The mission of SCDSS is to provide financial assistance and support services to eligible Suffolk County residents in a cost-effective and efficient manner, simultaneously protecting the vulnerable while encouraging their independence and self-sufficiency.

We do this through the administration of various programs, and I will focus on the most relevant to today’s topic:

• Temporary Assistance

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

  
  

  “These programs are authorized by the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) through various funding streams and, as a result, have different eligibility requirements and income thresholds. Each program has its own application and documentation requirements. This can make navigating these programs complicated – and discouraging. It’s the job of the Department to assist Suffolk residents

  
  

  178 Winslow, Olivia and Arielle Martinez. “Concerns for LI’s Working Poor,” Newsday, September 15, 2022.

  179 Fellini, Op. Cit

  to understand and gain access to the programs they are eligible for. We are committed to doing so with professionalism, respect and empathy, as we recognize the stigma associated with ‘welfare’ and the courage it takes to even walk through our doors.

  
  

  “Temporary Assistance, also known as TA, is a multifaceted program that provides for basic needs of eligible residents: cash, employment services, child care and temporary housing assistance. In April 2022, 4,032 of the lowest-income Suffolk households, including just over 4,000 children, received TA benefits. The majority of households in receipt of TA (81%) do not have any income other than TA. This is poverty in Suffolk County.

  
  

  “While we have seen a decline in TA over the last 3 years, there was a sharp increase in applications in September 2021 when enhanced [COVID] unemployment benefits ended. Of all adults in Suffolk County receiving TA, 74% are work exempt and 26% are employed/employable. We support in a few ways: subsidized employment for those who can work; assistance with SSI applications for those who are unable to work and services and support for those exempt.

  
  

  “Through our Disabled Client Assistance Program (DCAP), 73 individuals were awarded [federal] SSI benefits last year, which resulted in a gross [County] cost avoidance of

  $1.33 million.

  
  

  “Through their Suffolk Works Employment Program (SWEP), the Department of Labor assists employable adults in receipt of TA to secure jobs. In April 2022, 17.9% of eligible Suffolk TA recipients were engaged in a work activity - the highest participation rate in the state but far below the 50% target – a testimony to both the successes and challenges that come with assisting people to gain employment.

  
  

  “We provide child-care benefits for over 3,400 children, allowing over 1,600 parents to work. 826 households, including 764 children, are in receipt of temporary housing assistance.

  
  

  “We saw a decrease in Temporary Housing Assistance (THA) requests during the pandemic, but since the eviction moratorium ended in January, we have seen a steady increase in single men seeking THA. While we have not seen an increase in families seeking shelter, for those families in shelter, there has been a 52% decrease in moves to permanent housing in the last year and a 39% increase in length of stay. This is even with COVID-related rental assistance.

  
  

  “Of note, our April 2022 employment data show that, compared to TA recipients in the community, adults in shelters on TA are more employable (37% v 24%) and more employed (4% with earned income v 3%). These are the working poor of Suffolk County.

  “Also known as SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides monthly benefits to eligible residents to purchase food. In April 2022, 62,000 low-income Suffolk households, including over 34,000 children, received SNAP benefits. We have seen a tremendous increase in households receiving SNAP and, most notably, this increase is only among households who are not on Temporary Assistance – 74% of adults receiving SNAP have income – pointing to food insecurity caused by economic factors. These are the Suffolk residents doing their best to make ends meet and still falling short.

  
  

  “To … provide for the needs of low-income residents across Suffolk County, SCDSS has reduced barriers and increased access:

  
  

• Increased use of technology allows us to eliminate the need for some in-person visits to SCDSS centers.

• Reducing the child-care family share [of the child-care subsidy] from 10% to 1%.

• Initiating outreach through Adult Protective Services, bringing food, cleaning supplies and PPEs to seniors.

• Coordinating with other County and non-profit partners to connect clients to services they need.

  
  

  “New York State is:

  
  

• Providing the maximum SNAP benefit to all recipients.

• Increasing income threshold for child-care eligibility [to 300% of FPL as of August, 2022].

• Allowing SCDSS to pay out over $14 million in utility arrears.

  
  

  “To strengthen the County’s ability to meet the needs of all Suffolk residents, we support:

  
  

• More mental health and substance-use services including crisis and long-term residential programs

• More preventive services for children and families to build skills, capacity, resilience.

• More supportive housing.

• More affordable housing, with rents that can be met at all income levels.”

  
  

  Suffolk County Department of Labor

  
  

  The Suffolk County Department of Labor is contracted by SCDSS to administer the SWEP program that is charged with placing work-eligible TANF recipients in work settings. SWEP helps Temporary Assistance applicants and recipients obtain the skills they need to find employment. Once employed, families can receive help with child care and other work-related expenses. Rosalie Drago, Commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Labor, Licensing

  and Consumer Affairs, provided this survey of their services to low-income people in her June 2nd testimony:180

  
  

  “While the Suffolk County Department of Labor, Licensing & Consumer Affairs provides employment services for all County residents, we prioritize service to those who face the greatest barriers to employment and our County’s most in-need constituents to ensure individuals gain access to the services they need to join or re-join the workforce.

  
  

  “The federal Workforce Innovation & Opportunity Act defines these targeted ‘In-Need’ populations as follows:

  
  

  • Dislocated workers (unemployed as a result of general economic conditions in the community in which the individual resides or because of natural disasters).

  • Veterans and their spouse, individuals with disabilities, people receiving public assistance, Native Americans, older individuals, people experiencing homelessness.

  “Those are designations. The real question is ‘who are the low-income people?’

  [The answer is] our working poor, many who may on paper be above the poverty rate but in reality, are poor.

  
  

• Parents, working multiple low-wage jobs. Individuals working hard to support their families that still cannot afford a vehicle to get to work, child care, or enough food to feed their family, or

• They could be youth who have to work while in-school, not to buy ‘extras’ but to keep a roof over their head.

  “[The working poor are] our unemployed neighbors who want to work – yet face barriers they did not create. As of today, there are over 30,000 thousand jobs posted on Long Island. There are thousands of people who need work and want to work. Examples of barriers-to-work might be:

  
  

• If you are a single parent with four children earning $15 per hour (that is approximately $31,000 a year) who has the desire, skill or credentials to work, but can’t leave their low-wage job to train for a higher paying one.

• A single mom working but still in shelter due to lack of affordable housing.

• The young man just out of foster care who received training, resume assistance, professional attire and was offered a job but couldn’t complete the application process because his phone was shut off or he can’t work a night shift because the rooming house he stays at has a curfew.

“We served over 80,000 individuals who faced the challenges I mentioned here.

“How has COVID impacted the Long Island economy, especially low-income people in Suffolk County? COVID, for many, severed a lifeline. For instance:

180 Drago, Op. Cit.

• Jobs that are available and accessible were not remote,

• Child care was scarce, and

• A digital divide, in terms of learning and access to work, left some youth and adults behind.

  “Specifically, Suffolk County’s March 2021 County unemployment rate of 6.1% was ranked at number thirteen out of the sixty-two New York counties. Due to COVID-19, many industries suffered historic job losses. For instance, the leisure and hospitality sector lost over 60,000 jobs between February and April 2020. Between April 2020 and March 2021, the sector regained a little over 40,000 jobs, or 62.9%.

  
  

  “Prior to the pandemic, leisure and hospitality had been a particularly high area of growth, indicating that consumers viewed economic conditions as favorable, therefore increasing their discretionary spending. Other industries that lost significant amounts of jobs, many have regained over 70 % of those jobs back. These industries include retail trade (71.2%), health care and social assistance (71.7%), construction (71.5%), professional and business services (80.8%), and transportation and warehousing (72.5%).

  
  

  “Labor force participation and the number of persons employed pre-COVID were at or near all- time highs.

  
  

  “SCDOL Priorities

  
  

• Youth – even during the pandemic our Youth Unit and our partner sites provided paid work experience for 400 youths from underserved communities. Last summer the program served 700 youths with barriers to work – providing a $2,500 income and work experience.

• We will continue to place an even greater focus on expanded youth employment programs with high growth industries such as manufacturing, energy, health care, technology and trades. This is the mechanism to break the cycle of poverty.”

Suffolk County Department of Health Services

Suffolk County DOH Commissioner Gregson Pigott submitted written testimony to the Commission summarizing the health programs his department offers to low-income people.181

“The Suffolk County Department of Health Services (SCDHS) provides a multitude of services encompassing many facets of our everyday lives that some may take for granted. Over the last two years, SCDHS diverted most of our staff to help with the emergency response effort spearheaded by the Suffolk County Executive's Office, while also trying to maintain a minimum level of services. Our community will

181 Written testimony submitted by Dr. Gregson Pigott, Suffolk County Commissioner of Health services, to the Welfare to Work Commission, June 24, 2022.

continue to experience the impacts from COVID-19 for years to come, in particular, the devastating impact on the health and well-being of our residents.

“In many ways, our society was not ready to combat this pandemic. With so many under/uninsured individuals, this translated into less trips to the doctor for routine care and physicals which can lead to more underlying health conditions, specifically those that are risk factors for COVID-hospitalizations (asthma, diabetes, heart disease, etc.). During the height of pandemic lockdown measures, this trend was further extended and exasperated amongst those who are insured due to fear of being exposed at their doctor's office.

“Many of those who were hospitalized will now have to address mounting medical bills, those who had to take time off from work may experience loss of employment, and many may develop disabilities that make it difficult to return to work as a result of Long COVID symptoms. With so many instabilities created from the pandemic, we are now starting to uncover many of the ancillary impacts from it such as an increase in mental-health conditions, substance-use disorders as well as an uptick in late-stage diagnosis of cancer and other forms of illnesses.

“As the world continues to respond and recover from this pandemic, SCDHS will focus its efforts on building back up the plethora of public health programs and services our Department provides. Our divisions cover a wide-range of issues, such as responding to an active break out of a certain communicable disease, inspecting businesses to ensure they are operating safely for patrons and our environment, or conducting presentations to educate and empower residents to adopt healthy lifestyles in an effort to increase lifespan and quality of life.

“Under our Division of Patient Care Services, there are many patient-focused programs such as the Suffolk County Women, Infants, and Children Program, better known as the Suffolk County WIC Program and Immunization Action Program.

“The Suffolk County WIC Program's mission to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants, and children up to age 5 who are at nutrition risk by providing breastfeeding support, information on healthy eating, nutritious foods to supplement diets, and referrals to health care. Our WIC clinics are located at our local Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), Sun River Health, and Dolan Family Health Center. Thankfully, prior to the pandemic WIC started administering benefits electronically via debit cards in 2019, which allowed clients to utilize these benefits more easily. When the pandemic hit, staff shifted to providing services over the phone. This format has actually resulted in higher WIC enrollment and better visit attendance. Since WIC staff are no longer able to do some of the screenings they would do during in-person visits, they rely on clients providing updated medical information from their providers.

Clients are encouraged to attend all recommended medical appointments.

“SCDHS Immunization Action Program's (IAP) mission is to ensure that children in Suffolk County are fully immunized by their second birthday, and that all infants born

of hepatitis B positive mothers are appropriately identified, treated and tracked. This Program holds immunization clinics, conducts immunization audits in private providers' offices and nursery/day care centers, conducts educational programs for health care professionals and stakeholder members in the community and responds to immunization questions. Although this Program is available to all, it is geared to the uninsured. You may find the Immunization Action Program's schedule on our website. At the start of the pandemic, IAP suspended its vaccination clinics due to the fact that staff was diverted to COVID-19 response activities. These clinics resumed in spring of 2021 with the addition of offering COVID-19 vaccination as well. Nationally, rates of administration for routine childhood vaccines decreased during the pandemic, which is why IAP has now resumed audits of medical offices to help increase childhood vaccination rates.

“OHE staff also works with other agencies to design programming and provide education in Suffolk County communities in an effort to prevent disease, disability and premature death. In particular, OHE is working to reduce behaviors that lead to the development of co-morbidities such as cancer, diabetes obesity and smoking/vaping.

The office is a resource for schools, work sites and community groups, for the latest health-education information.

“During the last two years, most of the programming that OHE provides needed to move to an online platform as well as diverting staff to help with emergency response efforts. The office itself was converted into a seven day a week COVID-19 call center for the last two years while maintaining basic programming.

“The Bureau of Public Health Nursing's mission is to promote optimal overall health and wellness among Suffolk County's most vulnerable populations and strengthen the welfare of minority communities. The Bureau's specialty has been providing skilled- nursing care and intervention to high-risk pediatric, pregnant and post-partum women (OB population}, especially those who have many determinants of health, such as poor literacy, limited social support, language barriers and poor social-economic conditions. These populations have been disproportionately impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in 2020, as health care resources were realigned from these high- risk populations in order to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. During that time the Bureau provided critical health care services and vaccine distribution to residents in all 10 towns of Suffolk County.

“The Division of Community Mental Hygiene Services' Administrative Unit is responsible for the fiscal and programmatic oversight of direct and contracted services to individuals with mental illness, developmental disabilities, and substance-use disorders. It is the mission of this Division to ensure that the most vulnerable and oftentimes forgotten constituents of Suffolk County have an array of comprehensive services available to them to maximize their full potential and improve upon the quality of their lives. Presently, the Division is responsible for the oversight of 186 voluntary agency contracts along with the direct operation of various programs including County operated mental-health clinics and opioid treatment programs. The Division remains a resource committed to the various providers within Suffolk County,

providing technical assistance and resource guidance as needed. The degradation of our communities' overall mental health has become more evident with the increase in mental-health related crises among people of all ages.

“The Suffolk County Health Department is one of the core government agencies that provides many services for residents of Suffolk County, including those especially in need. As the Department continues to respond and combat COVID-19 within our community, SCDHS will also continue to provide many of the critical services and programming that our residents need to remain safe and healthy.”

‌Essential but Underfunded Nonprofit Agencies

The Health and Welfare Council of Long Island lists about 200 Long Island nonprofit community-based organizations in their network that provide a wide variety of social services to tens of thousands of Long Islanders in need.182 The Suffolk County budget each year contains contracts with hundreds of community-based agencies, often working closely with SCDSS, SCDOL and SCDOH to deliver a wide range of supportive social services such as housing, health care, family counseling, food pantries and many more. As noted immediately above, the Division of Community Mental Hygiene Services' Administrative Unit within the Suffolk County Department of Health Services alone has 186 contracts with community-based agencies to deliver mental-health services.

To illustrate the services provided by community-based nonprofit agencies in Suffolk County, the Gerald Ryan Outreach Center at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church in Wyandanch summarized in a email-update these services they offered to low-income people during the month of October, 2022, thereby supplementing government services:183

• “The Job Fair held last week at the Outreach was very well attended with over 120 plus candidates and 40 companies; kudos to both the Wyandanch

  Resource Center which organized the event and the GROC staff for their assistance in making sure all went smoothly.

  
  

• “The Catholic Health Mobile Van will be at the Outreach Center on Thursday, October 27th from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm to offer flu vaccinations and health screenings like simple blood tests for cholesterol and glucose, blood pressure screening and referrals as needed.

  
  

• “We started our winter coat distribution this week, each client can select a coat from the racks in the clothing room. Fortunately, we have many coats in good condition and some new coats to distribute. All of our programs are in full swing!

182 https://hwcli.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/Annual-Report-2021-8.pdf

183 Email report from Joseph Gibbons, President of the Board of Trustees, Gerald Ryan Outreach Center, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal RC Church, Wyandanch, October 11, 2022

“As stated in past emails, our [ Gerald Ryan Outreach] client base is increasing as we are seeing at least 11 new families each month in addition to our normal client base. At this point, the Outreach Center is providing food, clothing and case management to over 560 households per month or 1,300 individuals. Inflation is quite real, and our food costs have increased substantially! In addition to rising food costs, donations from food drives have virtually disappeared. Since donations ran out last year, we are now buying fresh eggs and milk at a cost of $1,600 each month. We distribute frozen chickens to all, which costs

$10.95 each and becomes very expensive with our current client base of 560 households per month. ‘Our food inventory is at a 10 year low’ stated Ken, a dedicated volunteer, who has helped restock our pantry for over 12 years. Even our volunteers are asking, ‘Where did all the food go?’”

In early September of 2022, when the Suffolk County computer networks were shut down due to a malware attack, Suffolk County Comptroller John Kennedy stated that the County would be sending out paper checks to address the “most immediate and critical needs” of the nonprofit contract agencies that “employ hundreds, if not thousands of people who are integral to the delivery of the range of services that we provide and pay for.” But Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, a member of the Commission and head of Family and Children’s Services, told Newsday, “Most nonprofits, even larger ones like ours, live a lot like our clients – paycheck to paycheck.” Another nonprofit director, Laura Ahearn, of the Crime Victims Center, added, that “nonprofits are at the mercy of government budgets.”184

As the Commission reported in its 2012 Suffolk poverty study: 185

“It has long been understood that government contracts for nonprofit agencies have too often fallen short of the actual costs they incur in providing these services. Because the contracts draw from federal and State health and social-service funds which, …. are often the first to be

frozen or cut during a budget crisis, the County is hamstrung by these outside funding

184 Chinese, Vera. “Suffolk Cutting Paper Checks,” Newsday, September 16, 2022.

185 Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature, “Struggling in Suburbia…,” Op. Cit.

sources when it negotiates a contract with a nonprofit agency. County funds used to pay these nonprofit contractors are also among the first to be frozen or cut during a County budget crisis. Thus, it is routine for County contracts to be frozen or flat funded for years at a time. … A cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is almost never factored into a County’s contract with a nonprofit agency. Nor does the County pay the typical 10% administrative costs incurred by nonprofit agencies in the delivery of services.”

Contract agencies often can provide social services at lower costs than government agencies for a number of reasons including the fact that they are smaller, more flexible, have lower overhead costs and because they are mostly non-union meaning that they pay lower wages and benefits than government, unionized workers receive.

Suffolk County government contracts with nonprofits have routinely underfunded the provider agencies to the point where a proposed contract freeze despite inflationary and other increases in their costs is often considered a victory by provider agencies. In his May 26th testimony to the Commission, Dr. Reynolds pointed out that his staffing costs operate at an annual loss, even with a 5.8 % cost-of-living allowance received from New York State. He called for an “annual increase in nonprofit agency government contracts” which are few and far between, noting that these contracts are an “early investment in human services that prevent later, long-term and very expensive public costs such as emergency- room visits or prison incarceration.”186

Dr. Reynolds further elaborated on the staffing problems faced by underfunded nonprofit contract agencies:187

“Health and services staff are increasingly part of Suffolk's working poor. The chronic underfunding of contracts has left us unable to provide staff an adequate wage to live on Long Island and over the course of the last two years, they've fallen further behind. We have staff with Master's degrees and 10+ years’ worth of experience leaving to work in retail and other sectors because they'll make more money and avoid the accumulated trauma that goes along with helping vulnerable folks unable to access mental-health services and other programs. Nobody goes into social work to get rich, but it's getting impossible to work in the space and still put a roof over your head and feed your kids.

We've asked social workers and other non-profit staff to solve Suffolk's most vexing problems - homelessness, hunger, illiteracy, domestic violence, mental-health conditions, etc. - yet folks driving for food delivery services are making more. There's a disconnect that impacts our entire community. At least a dozen staff that I'm aware of have moved off Long Island in the last year, citing the high cost-of-living and inability to make ends meet.”

In the end, many nonprofit contract agencies provide a myriad of essential services to low- income and vulnerable Suffolk residents, often services that the federal, state and county governments cannot or will not provide. For example, most of the SCDSS staff who interface with clients are case workers who process Public Assistance applications, check for income and

186 Reynolds, testimony to the Welfare to Work Commission, Op. Cit,

187 Email from Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, President and CEO of Family and Children’s Association to Richard Koubek, Chair, Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature, September 21, 2022.

other eligibility requirements and oversee compliance with regulations. They do not offer case management, defined as "professional and collaborative process that assesses, plans, implements, coordinates, monitors, and evaluates the options and services required to meet an individual's health needs.”188

Chanee Hammonds is Associate Director of Wyandanch Homes and Property Development Corporation that offers case-management services to homeless families in 27 homes provided by the agency. Ms. Hammonds testified at the May 26th Commission hearing about her agency’s case-management services. Noting that “maintaining housing can be quite challenging for low- income individuals and families who have had a history of homelessness,” Ms. Hammonds explained how their case managers meet weekly with clients assisting “them in many different areas such as: budgeting/financial literacy; treatment planning; care coordination; independent living skills; career and education counseling; advocacy and referral” to outside agencies.189

This nonprofit thus provides individualized case- management supports that empower, encourage and prepare homeless individuals and families to find a path out of poverty, working with them over time to overcome the barriers to self-sufficiency identified above in this report.

Labor Unions and Poverty Reduction

Any discussion of community responses to poverty needs to include strategies for increasing wages and benefits to levels of family self-sufficiency.

Historically, labor unions have been a major vehicle for doing so. Since the 1980s, union membership has declined precipitously in the United States, a period that witnessed stagnation in worker incomes and a general rise in income inequality throughout the United States..

Since COVID, there are signs of a major revival of union memberships, including here on Long Island. According to a 2022 Hofstra University study, union memberships on Long Island rose a full percentage point between 2019 and 2021, to 26.5 % of the

workforce or 336,246 workers. The report noted that “earnings at unionized employers in the New York City/Long Island metro area are typically 12-13% higher than nonunion pay – even after controlling for age, education, job experience, gender, race, immigration status,

188 Harkey, Jane. “Case Management at the Intersection of Social Work and Health Care,” Social Work Today, January/February 2017.

189 Testimony of Chanee Hammond at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, May 26, 2022.

employment sector and other relevant characteristics.”190 For working-poor and low-wage people, this can make a major difference in their ability to make ends meet on Long Island.

In his testimony at the June 2nd Commission hearing, Ani Halasz, Executive Director of Long Island Jobs with Justice, testified that, in addition to the pay differentials, “union members also have more reliable health care coverage, safer workplaces, financial security for their retirement, and greater leverage over their employer. Workers not protected by unions are more susceptible and likely to experience poverty wages, wage theft, unlawful firing, discrimination, injury and/or fatality on the job, and retaliation from the employer when attempting to organize.”191

Christian Limbach, a member of the Executive Board of the Suffolk County Association of Municipal Employees and a member of the Commission, submitted written testimony in which, commenting on the generally low starting salaries of many Suffolk County government employees, stated that his members could be among the poor population who are the focus of the Commission’s hearings and this report, “were it not for the benefits we negotiated for them through the collective bargaining process.”192

Addressing the core causes of poverty that were a major focus of those who testified at the Commission’s hearings and of this report, Mr. Halasz stated:193

“Poverty is the social and economic condition that is created when profit is valued over people. If we agree that low-wages, worker exploitation, the crushing cost-of-living on Long Island and structural racism all contribute to the growing rate of poverty, then I hope we can all agree that unionization, a worker’s ability to negotiate the terms and conditions of their labor, is a viable solution.”

Return to Table of Contents

190 Genn, Adina. “Union Membership Grows Faster on LI than in NYC, Long Island Business News, August 31, 2022.

191 Testimony of Ani Halasz, Executive Director of Long Island Jobs with Justice, at the Welfare to Work Commission hearing on Suffolk poverty, June 2, 2022.

192 Written testimony of Christian Limbach, Suffolk County Association of Municipal Employees, submitted to the Welfare to Work Commission, June, 2022.

193 Ibid.

Part X

Public Policy Recommendations

The Public-Policy Landscape – Anti-Poor; Anti-Tax

As the Commission reported ten years ago and reiterates here, addressing Suffolk’s poverty requires an understanding of the unique qualities of suburban poverty. Professor Sarah Eichberg of Adelphi

University’s Vital Signs Project summarized some of these unique qualities of poverty in the suburbs when she testified at the May 18th, 2012 poverty hearing:

• Suburban poor people tend to be more isolated and less concentrated and much more invisible than poor people in cities.

• Suburban poor people face serious transportation barriers compared with poor people in the cities who often can walk or take public transportation to work or to charitable and government offices that offer them help.

• Social services in the suburbs are much harder to access because the providers are spread over a wide geographic area and often have fewer funding resources than do city programs. The five Suffolk SCDSS sites and seven Suffolk health centers spread over the 2,373 square miles of Suffolk clearly illustrate this point.

• The lack of affordable housing is an especially serious burden facing suburban poor people. For example, only about 17% of Suffolk’s housing stock is rental housing which is critical to poor and near-poor people. And much of the existing rental stock is not affordable, especially to people earning under 200% of the FPL.

• Suburban economies are now witnessing an increasing number of low-wage workers following the migration of low-skilled, low-wage jobs to the suburbs from the cities.194

The suburban nature of Suffolk poverty tends to isolate low-income people from each other, the larger community and the supportive services they need. In addition, Long Island’s affluence – perceived and real – along with a widespread belief that poverty is an urban problem, creates yet another barrier to creating public policies that address the structural causes of poverty identified above in this report such racial and class inequities in housing, education and health care.

Finally, as the Commission reported in 2012, there is a deep antipathy in the suburbs toward property taxes, especially when these funds are used for anti-poverty programs. Raising taxes to fund any government program is politically difficult. Raising taxes to fight poverty can be political suicide. Some years ago, Commission Chair Richard Koubek was a guest on former County Executive Steve Levy’s radio show. In their conversation, Mr. Levy told Mr. Koubek that when he was County Executive, he knew the Commission’s recommendations to fight poverty made sense, but he said that the County simply did not have the money to fund them.

One of the Commission’s goals since its inception in 2003 has been to question County budget

194 Eichberg, Op. Cit.

priorities in ways that lift up the needs of low-income Suffolk residents, particularly the working poor. Prioritizing the needs of low-income people is not easy anywhere in the United States when poor people are generally blamed for their own poverty.

Welfare Politics

Government policies to support low-income people too often become tainted by negative stereotypes about welfare recipients. For example, the Commission’s 2012 report and this report focused on the inflexibility of program regulations designed to provide supportive services to poor people. As noted above in this report, the TANF rules require states to place 50% of TANF recipients in work activities, penalize them with funding reductions for not doing so, and penalize welfare recipients with sanctions that reduce or eliminate their benefits if they fail to comply with these work requirements. The federal TANF regulations require public-assistance clients to be placed in any of 12 prescribed activities which included work settings or training for work or, to a very limited degree, job training or educational activities such as a GED program.

Both of the Commission’s poverty reports found too many of these TANF work settings either fail to prepare clients for employment or prepare them for low-wage jobs that keep them in poverty after they leave welfare. Because the TANF work rules limit the amount of time that clients can be in education and training settings, the Commission has consistently argued for more flexibility in these rules, allowing, for example, a career-oriented associate’s degree or baccalaureate degree to be counted as a work setting so that clients are prepared for competitive jobs that pay family-sustaining wages.

In 2012, the Commission was pleased to learn that during the Obama Administration the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had issued a memorandum allowing state waivers to certain of these rigid TANF work rules so the states could have more flexibility in determining a work setting for Public-Assistance clients. An HHS memorandum stated that the purpose of these waivers was “To allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families.”195

These changes were immediately attacked in 2012 for allegedly “gutting” the “work-first” premise of the 1996 welfare law. In August of 2017, the Obama Administration changes were revoked by the Trump Administration. As the conservative Heritage Foundation argued in 2017, “The President made the right call when he decided to restore a focus on work in this key welfare program. TANF’s principles of work requirements should be replicated in Food Stamps as the next step in welfare reform in a continuing effort to promote self-sufficiency among able-bodied adults.” Heritage concluded, “as President Ronald Reagan eloquently put it: ‘Welfare needs a purpose: to provide for the needy, of course, but more than that, to salvage these, our fellow citizens, to make them self-sustaining and, as quickly as possible, independent of welfare.’ We

195 Johnson, Earl, Director, Office of Family Assistance, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Memorandum to State Human Services Officials, July 12, 2012.

should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.”196

Once again, the prevailing political view was that rigid and tough work requirements are needed because welfare recipients have grown dependent on Public Assistance and do not want to work.

Based on testimony received in both the 2012 and 2022 public hearings, and years of research and analysis on this subject, the Commission believes the best path for Public Assistance clients to leave welfare are flexible regulations that offer them educational and training opportunities that lead to jobs with family-sustaining wages. This goal remains elusive in a political terrain that is overwhelmingly anti-welfare.

‌Status of the Commission’s 2012 Commission’s Policy Recommendations

The Commission 2012 report offered a number of recommendations in keeping with the Commission’s goal of removing barriers to self-sufficiency. Appendix A contains these policy recommendations with their outcomes.

Several of the Commission’s 2012 recommendations were fully or partially implemented during the past ten years, including:

Expanded Bus Service: Since many low-income residents require Sunday bus service to get to and from work, the Commission’s 2012 recommendation for Sunday bus service was implemented. In addition, Newsday reported on December 6, 2022, that a 2022 Suffolk bus “redesign plan” will extend bus service evening hours which, according to Suffolk County Department of Transportation staff member Chris McVoy, will be to 10PM for all bus lines beginning October, 2023.197

SCDSS Staff Vacancies: The 2012 report addressed what were then major reductions in SCDSS staffing that have since been restored.

Filling SCDSS Vacancies: The 9.6% staff reductions reported in 2012 may have been the result of the Great Recession that began in 2008. The 2022 proposed County budget showed a $181 million surplus for 2022 with plans to fill 2400 staff vacancies and hire 51 new county-wide non-police staff198.

The improved fiscal position of the County appears to be the result of an influx of federal COVID funds as well a $360 million increase in sales tax revenues during the pandemic,

196 Rector, Robert and Vijay Mena. “Obama Gutted Work Requirements for Welfare. Why Trump is Right to Restore Them,” The Heritage Foundation, August 31, 2017.

197Castillo, Alfonso. “Bus ‘Redesign” Plan Finalized,” Newsday, December 6, 2022 and telephone conversation between Commission Chair Richard Koubek and Department of Transportation staff member Chris McVoy, December 78, 2022..

198 Blindner, Rachell. “Analysts: Suffolk budget surplus seen,” Newsday, October 13, 2022.

perhaps due to family budget savings created by 2020 pandemic business closings that resulted in an overall increase in 2021 on-line and local consumer purchasing.

There was some evidence of staff vacancies in SCDOL, the filling of which will likely be departmental priorities in 2022 and 2023.

Departmental Efficiencies: One Commission member described the SCDSS staff in 2021 as “more humane and compassionate” than ten years ago. Several members pointed out that important staffing procedural efficiencies over the past ten years have improved productivity such as on-line application filings at SCDSS and telephone intake interviews at SCDOL, which may have removed some of the daily SCDOL pressures and tensions such as long lines of people awaiting services offered by understaffed departments.

SCDSS Client Disabilities: As reported in 2012 and above in this report, Public Assistance clients suffer from multiple disabilities. Over the past decade, the Commission worked with SCDSS to develop a departmental Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) policy to improve assessment of clients entering the system so as to identify disabilities and thereby appropriately assign treatment options and work/education/rehabilitation/treatment placements. Despite the new ADA policy, several members reported that both ADA client complaints and fair hearings persist due to SCDSS and SCDOL not offering reasonable accommodations.

Regulation of Sober Homes: In 2010, after extensive study, the Commission issued a report to the Legislature detailing problems with the lack of State regulation of sober homes. The Commission has repeatedly expressed concerns about conditions in sober homes and thus recommended and was encouraged by the formation of the Suffolk County Sober Homes Task Force and the creation of a SCDSS Pilot Program that included enhanced rates for sober homes offering higher service levels. However, having consulted a member of the Task Force, the Commission was disappointed to learn that changes in personnel within the Legislature and at SCDSS stalled those efforts. While some State funding recently enhanced outside services to sober homes’ residents via Family and Children’s Association, concerns persist about the lack of State oversight of sober homes, largely centered on house conditions, policies and the treatment of residents.

Staffing of Human Rights Commission: The 2012 report called for improved staffing of the Human Rights Commission to reduce discriminatory real-estate practices that have led to racially-segregated housing patterns. The Human Rights Commission now has three Administrative Law Judges (ALIs), all attorneys, who are responsible for conducting formal hearings in cases of discrimination and discriminatory practices in housing, as well as employment, public accommodations, or other conditions arising under the Suffolk County Human Rights Law and applicable New York State and federal anti-discrimination laws. Their

officers are charged with taking testimony, reviewing all evidence presented during hearings, and preparing a recommended Decision and Order addressing liability, civil penalties, and sanctions.

The Commission’s 2012 recommendations thus produced some Suffolk County policy changes that such as Sunday bus service that reduced barriers to self-sufficiency faced by low-income people. But there is much work to be done.

Commission’s 2022 Recommendations

In his written testimony to the Commission in May of 2022, Long Island Association President Matt Cohen captured the core focus of this report on Suffolk poverty: “For Long Island to remain a vibrant and sustainable home for all of us, additional public and private support is essential to assist struggling individuals and families.”199 What follows are the Commission’s recommendations for needed supports to help low-income Suffolk residents overcome the barriers to self-sufficiency that they confront.

During the eleven hours of public hearings, written testimony submitted and the four focus groups, the Commission received a number of recommendations to address the structural causes of poverty in Suffolk County. Some of these recommendations refer to federal and state laws or regulations over which the County has little control, but which need to be understood to assess local policy issues related to serving the needs of low-income people.

Because the Commission’s primary focus is offering realistic policy recommendations for Suffolk County action, this report’s recommendations prioritize Suffolk actions first, then New York State and federal actions.

The recommendations are organized according to the barriers to self-sufficiency that confront low-income people in Suffolk County in selected policy areas.

Coordinated and Community-Based Service Delivery

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: Family Service League of Long Island surveyed clients in their senior-citizens program for this report. A number of the respondents reflected what one client said about the delivery of social-service programs: “We need consolidation of programs, offices, government bureaucracy so citizens can get help from one place.”

Since the Commission was established in 2003, it has addressed problems of service-delivery silos in child care, supportive housing, education and training and elsewhere, in which government and private agencies offer programs independently, disconnected from one another, often with separate County, State and federal funding streams.

Recommendations to Overcome the Barriers: Theresa Regnante, Executive Director of United Way of Long Island, testified on May 26thabout the need for community based and coordinated social services. A similar position was taken that day by Theresa Sanders, President and CEO of the Urban League of Long Island.

Below are recommendations for coordinating and thereby improving social-services delivery in Suffolk County. These recommendations address the geographic size of Suffolk County, the County’s inadequate public-bus system and the difficulty many low-income people have traveling to County offices to apply for or receive services.

199 Written testimony submitted by Matt Cohen, President of the Long Island Association, to the Welfare to Work Commission, May, 2022.

1. Suffolk should provide training on how to apply for SCDSS services for staff in community-based settings such as schools and libraries where staff in those settings (e.g., school guidance counselors or public librarians) could assist clients applying for services such as SNAP, HEAP, child care or Temporary Assistance.

   
   

   • The County would need to provide funding to train staff at these sites. Local libraries and schools could also host open houses at these sites to inform the public about SCDSS, SCDOL and SCDOH services.

   • Where possible SCDSS might also be present at these sites at set times during the month, in addition to the community sites where their staff are now present, to facilitate applications and to answer questions.

   • Community-based service delivery might also be done through Zoom or other technological links at these schools and libraries.

     
     

2. Make permanent the court diversion rooms created during COVID for people facing evictions where they can receive referrals to programs that assist people in rent or mortgage arrears.

3. Create a single coordinated street-outreach team to address the complex needs of unsheltered individuals. Such a team should include members of nonprofits, volunteer organizations and the Suffolk County Police Department’s Behavioral Health Unit - all working to decriminalize homelessness.

Address the Earnings Cliff

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: As indicated numerous times in this report, rigid federal and State income-eligibility requirements force many low-income people off needed supportive services such as cash assistance or the child-care subsidy once they earn above the program’s eligibility requirements.

Recommendation for Overcoming the Barriers: SCDSS should seek OTDA approval for a step-down program where the removal of benefits is gradual when a client’s income increases. This would help alleviate the fear many people receiving assistance have about transitioning into work. This would be similar to the OTDA Safety Net Plan of Self Support for single individuals that permits social service departments to disregard all or part of an individual’s earned income and/or resources for up to one year, keeping their Temporary Assistance (TA) case active and eligible to receive benefits. This plan of self-support provides an incentive for individuals to attain employment and continues Medical Assistance (MA) for employed individuals with minimal or no health insurance.

Regionalize the FPL

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: The earnings or benefits cliffs exist because the Federal Poverty Level, which is absurdly low for Suffolk County at $27,500 for a family of four, often is used to establish the eligibility requirements for supportive services such as Food Stamps.

Recommendations for Overcoming the Barriers: As the Commission argued in its 2012 report, and argues again, the FPL should be regionalized by the federal government to reflect local costs-of-living. As noted above, should the FPL be regionalized, the poverty definition for Long Island, the Commission believes it should be set at 200% of the current FPL or $55,500 for a family of four.

Non-Profit COLAs

Barrier to Self-Sufficiency: As reported above and in the Commission’s 2012 report, nonprofit agencies supplement and complement government social services in many ways. Their role is hampered by budget crunches that too often freeze funding for their government contracts.

Recommendation for Overcoming the Barrier: Suffolk County should build annual cost-of- living allowances (COLAs) into all county contracts for nonprofit agencies that provide services to Suffolk residents in need.

SCDSS, SCDOL, SCDOH Staffing

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: SCDSS, SCDOL and SCDOH are overwhelmed by the demand for services, especially since COVID.

Recommendations for Overcoming the Barriers: Given the enormous demand on SCDSS, SCDOL, SCDOH for services sought by low-income Suffolk residents and the paucity of qualified applicants responding to County job-opening “canvas” letters:

1. The County should offer market competitive/comparable wages and create competitive/comparable title upgrades.

2. The County should continue to fill and back-fill (fill vacant ) positions that have been budgeted.

Work-First TANF Regulations

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: Throughout this report, repeated references have been made to the deep cultural biases which assume that low-income people are lazy and lack self-reliance. These biases are built into numerous federal and State regulations, such as the five-year time limit for Public Assistance or the requirement that individuals who receive government supports such as Public Assistance or Food Stamps be required to work as a condition for receiving these services.

Recommendations for Overcoming the Barriers:. Here are proposed policy recommendations regarding the work rules.

1. SCDOL’s SWEP program should expand opportunities for clients to enroll in on-line educational courses.

2. New York State social service law should be changed to provide an opportunity for Public Assistance clients who have been sanctioned for violating a work rule to come into compliance with work activities and avoid a durational sanction which could last for

   several months, during which time families may experience food insecurity, loss of utilities and other crises created by the sanctions’ reduced benefits. This policy is permitted in New York City.

3. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should expand allowable SWEP work activities to include the process of preparing for work and participating in training such as English language learning, literacy and math skills, business development programs, financial management coaching, post-secondary education and vocational training.

Immigrant Workers’ Rights

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: The Commission heard testimony about how undocumented immigrants, who make major contributions to the Long Island economy, are often exploited because they work in the underground, cash economy and do not file complaints with the New York State Department of Labor for worker rights’ violations such as wage theft for fear of deportation.

Recommendations to Overcome the Barriers: While Suffolk cannot repair the federal government’s broken immigration laws, the County and State can address problems faced by immigrant workers with these policies:

1. Create a Suffolk County Wage Theft Commission to investigate and monitor employer compliance with New York State wage-theft laws.

2. Publish the names of employers found guilty of wage theft.

3. Enact the New York State Excluded No More bill creating a permanent fund for cash workers and undocumented immigrant workers currently denied access to New York State Unemployment Insurance.

4. Enact the federal Deferred Action for Labor enforcement policy that would halt deportations for immigrant laborers who have field labor-violation complaints.

Affordable Housing and Housing Discrimination

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: Repeatedly throughout this report, the lack of affordable housing, linked to deeply rooted patterns of racial and class segregation, were cited as major structural factors that cause instability in the lives of low-income people.

Recommendations to Overcome the Barriers: Here are recommendations for dealing with these interconnected problems:

1. Per the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act, Suffolk County should ensure that U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds are used to halt patterns of discrimination in the six towns and six villages that receive CDBG funds such as towns and villages undoing their exclusionary zoning laws that favor single-family dwellings and exclude multi-family dwellings, thereby permitting multi-family housing and accessory dwelling units which are more affordable than single-family homes.

2. Suffolk should require County contracted vendors to support the creation of affordable housing. Examples might be banks with County deposits having community reinvestment plans that foster affordable housing developments with low-interest loans or insurance companies with County policies not raising rates on properties that accept Section 8 vouchers.

3. A County direct-housing search assistance service should be created to help households find housing that accepts Section 8 vouchers.

4. A County-wide homeless hotline should be created that is dedicated to diverting people from homelessness by helping them navigate resources and problem-solve as they seek housing.

5. SCDSS should explore opportunities to house homeless undocumented immigrants in County shelters.

6. Increase the number of Suffolk agencies that provide counselors to access the New York State Homeowner Protection Program (HOPP) with services such as assisting homeowners to apply for HOPP funds, representing homeowners in the foreclosure process, finding alternative housing when they can no longer afford their homes and tax foreclosure negotiations.

7. New York State should add criminal convictions and Limited English Proficiency to the list of protected classes to prevent discrimination in housing, §528-9. 9

8. New York State should adopt a policy that stays commencement or continuation of a foreclosure action after a household submits a federal Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF) application seeking assistance with mortgage delinquencies and other household expenses due to COVID. NYS HAF is no longer accepting applications. There is a waiting list. However, homeowners who submitted a HAF application before the program closed may be in foreclosure with the action proceeding as they wait for a decision from HAF. This State-wide policy staying the commencement or continuation of a foreclosure action after the submission of a HAF application would prevent the foreclosure of low- income homeowners while their HAP applications are processed.

9. New York State should increase the rental-assistance portion of the Public Assistance grant to 100% of the Fair Market Rental for each social services district. The shelter allowance has not been increased in 34 years for households without minor children and in 19 years for households with minor children. The 2022 HUD Fair Market Rental rates for Suffolk County are: $1,372 (efficiency); $1,695 (one bedroom); $2,642 (two bedroom); $2,642 (three bedroom); $2,911 (four bedroom).200

10. New York State should ensure that certified Recovery Homes for people with alcohol and drug dependency disorders include access to a wide range of services, uphold residents’ rights and be recovery-oriented.

11. New York State should explore examples of California’s statutes that allow the state to override local exclusionary zoning codes in order to foster the construction of affordable housing. Two examples of these California laws that by-pass home rule are:

    
    

    • Senate Law 9 that allows most homeowners to build two homes or a duplex on a plot zoned for a single house, and in some cases, split their lot and build two additional homes

      
      

      200 https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/fmr/fmrs/FY2022_code/2022summary.odn

    • AB-2011 that allows developers to build housing on some commercial land without having to ask permission from local governments, as long as a certain percentage of the housing is affordable

Racial Segregation in Education

Barriers to Self Sufficiency: This report clearly demonstrated the patterns of housing segregation on Long Island that have created one of this nation’s most segregated school systems, thereby tracking low-income children, particularly Blacks and Hispanics, into lives of poverty.

Recommendations to Overcome the Barriers: At the time that the Commission was holding its public hearings, Erase Racism released a major report on educational funding inequities related to these patterns off segregation that included these policy recommendations which the Commission supports:201

1. Equitable Funding Across School Districts. The New York State Education Department and the New York State Legislature can ensure that funding per student is equitable, especially after accounting for their different need levels. In particular, it is important to remember that students from marginalized backgrounds (such as students of color, immigrant and English Language Learner students, and economically disadvantaged students) will need more resources than those from more privileged backgrounds (such as those from high-income families) to succeed as they face more structural barriers. Funding formulas will need to change and perhaps the entire structure of how education is funded should be assessed for equity and overhauled.

   
   

2. Equitable Sharing of Educational Resources Across School Districts. With the rise of new technological tools and virtual spaces, cross-district collaboration can also be seen as an avenue where educational resources can be made available across district lines. In particular, a program of shared resources can help students from high-need districts access a variety of advanced courses and educational support systems not available in their home district. A student could enroll in an AP or IB course in a different district or have access to a college fair or other resources of particular interest.

   
   

3. Racially Integrated Learning Environments. Even if funding and resources were equitable across school districts, the districts would remain segregated if the neighborhoods are segregated. Especially in the state’s suburbs, consolidation of school districts could alleviate this issue by encouraging districts to pull from wider geographical areas. On Long Island, for example, consolidation of currently small school districts into larger ones that are within town boundaries would allow for resources, especially funding from property taxes, to be distributed more evenly between neighborhoods populated primarily by Black and Hispanic students and neighborhoods of primarily White and Asian students. A phased implementation could provide more

201 Erase Racism. “ERASE Racism Report Reveals Unequal Resources for Long Island Students Based on Race”, May 23, 2022, Op. Cit.

funding to the racially integrated learning environments. Over time, funding could be phased out for programs that are not racially integrated. Simultaneously, special efforts could ensure that these programs are highly successful, so parents flock to them because of their recognized success. Facilities, curricula, teaching staffs, and services that embrace evidence-based excellence and accommodate working parents would further enhance the appeal of these programs. addressed to ensure that the voices of communities of color are not drowned out through such consolidation.

Criminal-Justice Reform

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: The criminal-justice system was identified in this report as another legal structure that fosters poverty.

Recommendations to Overcome the Barriers: Here are several proposals to reform the system in order to assist formerly-incarcerated people, many of whom face a host of barriers to housing and employment because of their criminal records.

1. Suffolk County should address the disproportionate impact that mandatory court surcharges and fees have on low-income people by developing equitable models for managing and using traffic revenue by creating sliding scale fines based on income and wealth.

2. Suffolk County should remove the $475 Suffolk County fee for probation phone interviews – § Ecode 677-1 (B) (1) (b). Suffolk County’s Probation Department has certain situations where they charge the individuals fees ranging from $50-$500. One such fee is for $475 for pre-sentence investigations which during the pandemic were primarily conducted by telephone. Although the law allows a petition to waive this fee, individuals have to apply for such waiver and demonstrate they are indigent. Failure to pay these fees will then affect credit which will in turn make it more difficult to obtain a mortgage, car, etc.

3. New York State should enact the End Predatory Court Fees Act to eliminate mandatory court surcharges, parole and probation fees, mandatory fines and commissary garnishment for unpaid fines.

4. New York State should enact the Clean Slate bill that would make record sealing of criminal records much more accessible by automating the process — criminal records would be sealed after a set period of time without any need to go to court or pay legal fees. Sealing criminal records would allow formerly-incarcerated individuals to access work, housing and some supportive programs, thereby reducing recidivism and improving their chances of living self-sufficient lives .

Child Care

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: The Commission has long supported changes in the child-care industry and child-care funding to accommodate the needs of low-income families, most of whom cannot afford quality child care which can cost from $13,000 to $20,000 a year per child.

Recommendations to Overcome the Barriers: Here are several recommendations to move New York State toward quality child care for all children, regardless of family income.

1. Move toward a New York State universal child-care system and thereby eliminate the benefits’ cliff with a State goal that no family pay more than 10% of their annual income toward child care and those under 400% of FPL no more than 7%

2. Include undocumented children in the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) child-care subsidy or explore County alternatives to allow undocumented children to receive the CDBG child care-subsidy

3. Adopt categorical child care assistance eligibility for families enrolled in other public assistance programs (SNAP, Medicaid, WIC, etc.) and for children with disabilities, children experiencing homelessness, in foster care, in families receiving preventive services. This would allow a family already deemed eligible for other forms of Public Assistance to automatically be eligible for child care assistance.

Food Security

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: Both the 2012 and 2022 Commission reports described how low- income families often have to seek help at food pantries so that they can pay other expenses such as their high rents. As the Commission reported above, some 250,000 Long Islanders visit pantries each year; many of these low-income people are food insecure.

Recommendations to Overcome the Barriers:

1. The 2022-2023 New York State increase of $22 million for the Hunger Prevention Assistance Nutrition Program (HPNAP) that supports food banks should be made permanent.

2. The federal government should continue funding school districts, as was done during COVID, so that every student receives a free school lunch, thereby upgrading school nutritional standards while sparing low-income children and their parents the indignity of having to apply for free or reduced-price lunches.

Health Care

Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: This report documents how low-income people concentrated in poor communities suffer from multiple health problems and inequities in the delivery of health services.

Recommendation to Overcome the Barriers:

New York State should expand Coverage for All to include undocumented individuals, between the ages of 19 to 64, who are income eligible.

Long Term Payoffs

These recommendations, particularly those related to Suffolk County, will entail what the Commission believes are modest investments in hiring staff or contracting with community agencies for new programs such as the homeless hot line or expanded educational opportunities for SWEP clients. But if implemented, these policies will have long-term payoffs such as the homeless hot line reducing expensive emergency shelter costs or expanding educational opportunities for SWEP clients which will help them obtain jobs with self-sustaining wages, thereby reducing their need for supportive services while producing needed tax revenues for the County. These payoffs are discussed next in the report’s conclusion.

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Part XI Conclusion

“A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats”

This report documents social and economic structures as well as personal physical and mental-health barriers that prevent tens of thousands of Suffolk residents from lifting themselves out of poverty. Many of these people trapped in poverty or near-poverty are the Missing Class – working, sometimes several jobs, often doing difficult essential work for our communities.

There are numerous moral and humanitarian reasons for providing government and community supports to low- income people who do not earn enough to pay for their basic necessities. Another argument for doing so is that lifting these struggling workers into lives of self- sufficiency will have long-term fiscal benefits for New York State and Suffolk County.

The United Way’s ALICE (Asset Limited Income Constrained, Employed) New York State threshold in their 2020 report is that a four-person household (two adults, two children in child care) needs an annual income of $78,156 or $39.08 per hour for basic necessities. (As noted above in the Commission’s report, the ALICE threshold for a Suffolk County family of four with two children in child care is higher at $111,900 due to the County’s high-cost-of living.)

According to the 2020 New York State ALICE report, based on 2018 data, the economic benefit to New York State of bringing all households to the ALICE Threshold would be approximately $278.5 billion, meaning that the state GDP would grow by 17% . This is based on three categories of economic enhancement:202

“The Earnings: New York’s 2018 GDP reflected earnings of $104.5 billion by the state’s households below the ALICE Threshold. Bringing all households to the ALICE Threshold would have a two-fold impact:

• Additional Earnings: $97.7 billion statewide.

• Multiplier Effect: Studies show that almost all additional wages earned by low- wage workers are put back into the economy through increased consumer spending, which in turn spurs business growth. Building on economic calculations used by Moody’s Analytics, this estimate assumes an economic multiplier of 1.2, meaning that a $1 increase in compensation to low-wage workers leads to a $1.20 increase in economic activity. In New York, this increased economic activity

  
  

  202 https://www.unitedwayli.org/sites/unitedwayli.org/files/2020%20ALICE%20Report%20NY%20FINAL.pdf

  would be valued at $117.2 billion.

  
  

  “Tax Revenue: New York’s 2018 GDP reflected tax revenue of $3.2 billion from the state’s households below the ALICE Threshold. Bringing all households to the ALICE Threshold would have these impacts:

  
  

  • Additional Tax Revenue: With additional earnings, there would also be additional taxes paid and reduced usage of tax credits such as EITC for low-income earners, totaling an additional $9 billion in tax revenue for New York.

  • Multiplier Effect: Additional state tax revenue gives state and local governments the opportunity to make investments that matter most to the well-being of residents and businesses — from tax cuts for small businesses to improvements in infrastructure, including health care and education — that can yield a high return on investment. Based on work by the Congressional Budget Office and Moody’s Analytics, the estimated multiplier is 1.44, which would mean an added $12.9 billion in economic activity in New York.

  • Community Spending: New York’s 2018 GDP reflected community spending of $92.8 billion on assistance to the state’s households below the ALICE Threshold. When all households can meet their basic needs, this spending can be reallocated to projects and programs that help families and communities thrive, not just survive.

“Indirect Benefits: Added value to the State GDP would come in the form of indirect benefits associated with increased financial stability. These benefits include improved health (and reduced health care expenditures), reduced crime and homelessness, and greater community engagement. [Using] the very conservative estimate of an added $41.7 billion (or 2.5% of the state GDP, which is the estimated cost of childhood poverty alone). This is still far short of the total indirect benefits of bringing all households to the ALICE Threshold, as it does not include benefits for adults or factor in the direct impact of redeploying private and nonprofit spending currently used to alleviate poverty.”

In a 1963 speech about the benefits of a government-funded infrastructure project, President John F. Kennedy famously declared that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” The ALICE data for New York State demonstrate that investing in programs to support low-income people who cannot pay for basic necessities will result in a rising economic tide for Suffolk and New York State that will uplift the entire community.

This report contains a number of concrete policy recommendations for Suffolk County to enhance supportive services to low-income residents that address the structural causes of poverty. Doing so will require resources and creativity, but the long-term benefits could be substantial.

What is required is a recognition of the need to act to help our Missing Class neighbors and the public will to do so. And that public will to act has to transcend the deep American cultural bias that low-income people are generally lazy.

One example of a creative program that seeks to address the structural causes of poverty is JP Morgan Bank’s October 8, 2022, announcement that it is earmarking $30 billion toward closing America’s racial wealth gap. Recognizing that Black Americans’ household wealth has held at 15 % of White household wealth for 60 years, among the JP Morgan pledges are:

• $8 billion to underwrite 40,000 mortgages for Blacks and Hispanic borrowers over five years;

• $4 billion in mortgage refinancing to lower interest rates for 20,000 Black and Hispanic borrowers;

• $14 billion in loans and capital infusions to affordable housing construction, with the goal of financing 100,000 rental units;

• $2 billion in small business loans in neighborhoods where the majority of the population is nonwhite;

• $100 million in minority-owned banks and Community Development Financial Institutions that make loans and grants to people who cannot get them from for-profit banks;

• $2 billion in philanthropic programs to “drive an inclusive economic recovery and support Black, Hispanic and other underserved communities.”203

Tracey Edwards, Regional Long Island Director of the NAACP, noted in her written testimony to the Commission204:

“All persons deserve to earn livable wages and benefits with opportunities to build credit, acquire financing, develop assets, and create savings and other investments. We need to advance policy, practice, and systemic change to close the racial wealth gap. Investments in community-driven strategies support diversity, equity, inclusion, and allyship.”

The JP Morgan a plan is bold and visionary, meeting Ms. Edward’s call for “policy, practice, and systemic change to close the racial wealth gap.” Hopefully, JP Morgan will follow through with it. But even though this still an “announced” plan, JP Morgan – one of this nation’s oldest and most powerful financial institutions – is telling America that we all have a responsibility to include in our great prosperity those who have been historically and systematically excluded.

As Laura Harding, President and CEO of Erase Racism wrote in her testimony to the Commission, The Suffolk County Welfare to Work Commission's report is a "thorough overview of the impact of poverty across Long Island [that] amplifies the harm structural poverty inflicts on ALL Long Islanders. It is a clarion call for a change in, and end to, federal, State, and local policies that codify harmful biases about poverty and especially inequitable, discriminatory

203 Flitter, Emily. “Anatomy of a $30 Billion Pledge to Close the Wealth Gap,” New York Times, October 23, 2022.

204 Written testimony to the Welfare to Work Commission by Tracey Edwards, Regional Long Island Director, NAACP, October 24, 2022

practices against Black and Latino Long Islanders and women of all races and ethnicities. The report's policy recommendations offer a clear path to rectifying the harm caused and ensuring that Long Island becomes an affordable place where all individuals and families can live well.”205

With carefully crafted public and private initiatives, some as simple as extended evening hours for Suffolk bus service, a rising tide can lift all boats.

Respectfully submitted to the Suffolk County legislature and all interested parties by the Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County legislature, December 8, 2022

Richard Koubek PhD, Chair, Gerald Ryan Outreach Center

Ayesha Alleyne, Vice Chair, Wyandanch Homes and Property Development Corporation

Legislator Trish Bergin, Chair, Senior and Human Services Committee Paola Arango, Nassau/Suffolk Law Services

Peggy Boyd, Family Service League Fred Combs, Jr., EOC of Suffolk County Barbara Egloff, Eastern Suffolk BOCES

Kimberly Gierasch, Suffolk County Department of Health Greta Guarton, Long Island Coalition for the Homeless

Michael Haynes, Long Island Cares/The Harry Chapin Food Bank Arlene Jackson, Suffolk County Community College

Cheryl Keshner, Empire Justice Center

Christian Limbach, Suffolk County Association of Municipal Employees Alicia Marks, Marks of Excellence Child Care

Colleen Merlo, Association for Mental Health and Wellness

Frances Pierre, Commissioner, Suffolk County Department of Social Services Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, Family and Children’s Association

Luis Valenzuela, Long Island Council of Churches

Donna Worshoufsky, Suffolk County Department of Labor, Licensing and Consumer Affairs

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205 Written testimony submitted to the Welfare to Work Commission by Laura Harding, President and CEO, Erase Racism, Long Island, December, 2022.

Appendix A

Status of the 2012 Poverty Report Recommendations

206 Budget Review Office 2013 Budget Review, Op .Cit., P. 287.

207 Blindner, Rachell. “Analysts: Suffolk budget surplus seen,” Newsday, October 13, 2021.

208 Coy, Peter. “Higher Wages Can make Some Workers Poorer,” New York Times, November 11, 2021.

209 Budget Review Office 2013 Budget review, Op. Cit, P. 189.

210 Ibid., P. 184.

211 Welfare to Work Commission of the Suffolk County Legislature, “Affordable for Whom? Creating Housing for Low- and Moderate-Income People in Suffolk County,” report to the Suffolk County Legislature, February, 2007,

P. 15

f

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212 Ibid. P. 16.

213 Ibid.

Appendix B

Participants in the Suffolk Poverty Hearings and Focus Groups or Researchers

Hearings:

• May 26, 2022 Hauppauge Legislative Auditorium

• June 2, 2022 Riverhead Legislative Auditorium

  
  

  Focus Groups:

• August 31, 2022: The Pollack Center for Recovery and Wellness

• September 16, 2022: CAPP EOC Youth Group, Brentwood

• October, 2022: Long Island Sound Senior Care, Family Service League

• November 12, 2022: EOC-LI Bellport Center with members of the Bellport Hagerman East Patchogue Alliance

Government Officials

1. Rosalie Drago, Commissioner, Suffolk County Department of Labor, Licensing and Consumer Affairs

2. Christine Fellini, Deputy Commissioner, Suffolk County Department of Social Services

3. Dr. Gregson Pigott, Commissioner, Suffolk County Department of Health

   
   

   Academic Experts and Researchers

4. Susan Antos, Senior Attorney, Empire Justice Center

5. Judge Fern Fisher, Special Assistant to the Dean for Social Justice Initiatives at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law, Hofstra University

6. Martine Hackett, Associate Professor of Public Health at Hofstra University

7. Cheryl Keshner, Senior Attorney/Community Advocate, Empire Justice Center

8. Jessica Radbord, Senior Attorney, Empire Justice Center

   
   

   Agency Representatives

9. Clarine Boone, Bellport Hagerman East Patchogue Alliance

10. Karen Boorshtein, President and CEO of Family Service League

11. Stephen Brazeau, Executive Director, Pax Christi Hospitality Center

12. Rebecca Carbone, EOC-LI

13. Steve Chassman, Executive Director of LICADD (LI Council on Drug and Alcohol Dependency)

14. Katlyn Clancy, EOC-LI

15. Matt Cohen, President, Long Island Association

16. Fred Combs, Jr. EOC-LI

17. Shirley Coverdale, President of the Family Community Life Center, Riverhead

18. Claire Deroche, Chair, Public Issues Committee, Long Island Council of Churches

19. Sandra Dunn, Associate Director of OLA of Eastern Long Island

20. Tracey Edwards, Long Island Regional Director, NAACP

21. Marcia Estrada, SEPA Mujer

22. Ralph Fasano, Executive Director, Concern for Independent Living

23. Valery Felix, Intern, SEPA Mujer

24. Rev. Ron Garner, Pastor, Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church and Poor People’s Campaign, LI

25. Joseph Gibbons, President of the Board of Trustees, Gerald Ryan Outreach Center, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal RC Church, Wyandanch

26. Michael Giuffrida, Associate Director, Long Island Coalition for the Homeless

27. Ani Halasz, Executive Director, Long Island Jobs with Justice

28. Chanee Hammonds, Associate Director, Wyandanch Homes and Property Development Corporation

29. Laura Harding, President and CEO, Erase Racism

30. Diane Sanchez, The Pollack Center for Recovery and Wellness

31. Serena Liguori, Executive Director of New Hour for Women and Children

32. Christian Limbach, a member of the Executive Board of the Suffolk County Association of Municipal Employees

33. Marissa Luchs-Kindler, Supervising Attorney, Housing Unit, Nassau/Suffolk Law Services

34. Alicia Marks, Marks of Excellence Child Care Center

35. Colleen Merlo, Chief Executive Officer, Association for Mental health and Wellness

36. Lisa Miles, Staff Attorney, Empire Justice Center

37. Nadia Marin Molina, Co-Executive Director, National Day Laborer Organizing Network

38. Sr. Mary Beth Moore, SCH, Executive Director, Centro Corazon de Maria, Hampton Bays

39. Laura Mullen, ECLI VIBES

40. Paule Pachter, President and CEO, Long Island Cares/The Harry Chapin Food Bank

41. Theresa Regnante, Executive Director of United Way of Long Island

42. Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, President and CEO, Family and Children’s Association

43. Jennifer Rojas, Executive Director, Child Care Council of Suffolk

44. Vincent Rothaar, Assistant Division Administrator, Suffolk County Department of Asocial Services

45. Noemi Sanchez, Regional Coordinator of Rural and Migrant Industries

46. Theresa Sanders, President and CEO of the Urban League of Long Island

47. Rebecca Sanin, President and CEO, Health and Welfare Council of LI

48. Dorothy Santana, Founder and President, Latina Moms Connect, Inc.

49. Wayne Scallon, Long Island Coalition for the Homeless

50. Onika Shepherd, Political Director, 1199-SEIU

51. Sr. Margaret Smyth, OP, Director, North Fork Hispanic Apostolate

52. Carly Sommers, Staff Attorney at Nassau/Suffolk Law Services

53. Susan Steinman, Poor People’s Campaign, LI

54. Natasha Torres, SEPA Mujer

55. Ian Wilder, Executive Director, Long Island Housing Services

    Members of the Public

56. Amanda*

57. Alicia** (11th grade, Brentwood)

58. Ashley** (11th grade, Brentwood)

59. Clarice Boone

60. Senior Citizen Client #1***

61. Senior Citizen Client #2 ***

62. Senior Citizen Client #3***

63. Senior Citizen Client #4***

64. Senior Citizen Client #5***

65. Senior Citizen Client #6***

66. Senior Citizen Client #7***

67. Monique Cobb

68. Diana** (11th grade, Brentwood)

69. Michael Fay

70. Monique Fitzgerald

71. Dolores Gregory

72. Helen** (12th grade, Central Islip)

73. Jamier** (11th grade, Brentwood)

74. Jayden (11th grade, Brentwood)

75. Irwin** (11th grade, Brentwood)

76. Kadeidra Henry

77. Laurie*

78. Melanie** (9th grade, Brentwood)

79. Brenda Mitchell

80. Rachel*

81. Richard (asked to remain anonymous)

82. Yokarina Rodriquez

83. Hanna Thomas

84. Zohia** (10th grade, Brentwood)

    
    

    Testimony from the 2012 Hearings Incorporated into the 2022 Report

85. Elaine Gross, President and CEO of Erase Racism (Emeritus)

86. Professor Sarah Eichberg, Vital Signs Project, Adelphi University

87. Trudi Renwick, Chief, Poverty Statistics Branch, Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division, U.S. Census Bureau (Retired)

88. ​

*Requested anonymity: Participant in the Pollack Center for Recovery and Wellness Focus Group

** Requested anonymity: Participant in the EOC-LI Youth Focus Group

***Requested anonymity: Participant in the Family Service League Senior Program Focus Group

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