Maryann and Gerry were fixtures at the Times Square subway entrance, well known to local office workers, to the police and the courts.  With a dog as one prop, and Gerry’s drums as another, they had supported themselves and their heroin habits by panhandling, sometimes aggressively, to tourists and the regular business crowd.  Their belongings a makeshift tent, sleeping bags and clothes - were tucked into two carts, which sidewalk food vendors and the security staff at the office building above the station would watch for as they shifted to more lucrative posts over the course of the day or went to buy heroin or tend to their growing array of health problems.   By night, they bedded down at the subway entrance beneath the office plaza.

After six years, outreach workers for the homeless, the local business improvement district, the police – all shrugged their shoulders about Maryann and Gerry.  Though their health was deteriorating – Gerry now needed a cane because of his diabetes, Maryann was in and out of the hospital with bouts of pneumonia – and the complaints about their aggressive approaches to passersby were increasing, it appeared that nothing could be done to fundamentally change the future for Maryann and Gerry.

That was in 2005.  Today, Maryann and Gerry are living in their own apartment.  They have not overcome their addictions, but their health is improving.  They talk about their years of homelessness as a trap they could not escape on their own, and how the changes in their lives began in an unusual place: the Midtown Community Court.

The Court, in collaboration with Common Ground and the Times Square Alliance, came together in 2005 to end chronic street homelessness in Times Square through the Street to Home Initiative.  With New York City’s densest concentration of individuals living on the street, the Times Square neighborhood was also filled with outreach workers, church missions, beat cops and public safety officers who encountered Maryann, Gerry and hundreds of other homeless individuals each day.  But while each was talking with Maryann and Gerry and the others on the street, they weren’t speaking with each other.  Without a coordinating structure, the efforts of all these organizations helped to sustain homeless individuals, but did nothing to end their homelessness.  For all the attention the homeless received, the charitable organizations had food and blankets and offers of temporary shelter; the police and courts addressed the aggressive panhandling and other criminal issues with arrests and short jail stays, no one offered a way of out of homelessness.

The Street to Home Initiative was created to change that.  In the winter of 2005, the three organizations did a nighttime survey and documented 55 individuals sleeping on the street within the 20 blocks that constitute the heart of Times Square.  Yet follow up early morning surveys of the district revealed a different picture of homelessness in the area: only 18 of those individuals were consistently found in Times Square after the late night crowds disappeared.  Securing housing for those 18 individuals became the focus of the combined efforts of the three organizations.

It required getting beyond generic planning and anonymous service delivery to know and befriend each individual, to understand their aspirations for or resistance to a life beyond homelessness, and an honest assessment of their needs and the barriers they faced in securing housing.  It required the organizations to work differently with each other, sharing information (through a client release form), pooling resources and communicating regularly to seize any opportunity for movement.

Of all the roles in this neighborhood response to homelessness, that of the Midtown Community Court was the most unusual.  Common Ground’s outreach staff began discussing housing options with the 18 individuals, coordinating medical and psychiatric assessments, assisting individuals in securing government benefits, locating vacancies in supportive housing and securing new housing resources.  The public safety officers of the Times Square Alliance reinforced the message that the neighborhood supported housing, not continued homelessness, and encouraged vendors and building security officers not to condone panhandling by watching carts or otherwise enabling the status quo.  The Court’s role in the collaborative was to use the Court as a pathway into housing for this specific group of chronically homeless court-involved individuals.

In the early months of the program, three of the 18 were arrested.  As is the case of the majority of homeless individuals arrested in New York City, they involved misdemeanor drug, larceny or assault offenses. Typically, a misdemeanor at the Community Court is sentenced to supervised community service in the neighborhood and provided access to health, employment and other critical assistance as part of the sentencing process.  In the case of homeless individuals in our target group of 18, the Court sentenced individuals to work with the Street to Home staff to complete the application process for housing as their mandatory community service.

Maryann was one of the three.  She plead guilty to a charge of loitering, and to her surprise, found herself sitting with a housing advocate, Juan from Street to Home.  Maryann had met Juan before on the street and dismissed him.  Her life with Gerry was difficult but it was what she was used to.  She was getting sicker, but did not want to stop using drugs.  She wasn’t interested in getting housing if it meant she had to be drug free.  On the street, she walked away.  With the Court’s mandate, she had to listen.  Street to Home had links to housing options that would not require her to be clean or in treatment, only to be a responsible tenant.  She was skeptical, but began the process of working with Street to Home.  Street to Home kept the court abreast of Maryann’s successful completion of her sentence and continued to work with her toward housing until she moved into her own apartment two months later. 

Nearly two years later, chronic homelessness in Times Square has been reduced 87%.  Of the 18 homeless individuals permanently “anchored” in the neighborhood, all have moved into housing.  Thirty others who were only marginally or episodically homeless left the neighborhood as the dynamic of street homelessness began to change.

The success of the Street to Home initiative in securing housing for the chronic homeless and in dramatically reducing street homelessness in the Times Square neighborhood has shifted New York City’s approach to outreach.  Starting in September, 2007, Street to Home’s methods will be practiced neighborhood by neighborhood, citywide.  The promise of the role of community courts in helping to end street homelessness is also being recognized. 

The problem-solving features of community courts make them a natural venue to resolve homelessness.  By collaborating with community partners equipped to secure housing and ongoing services for homeless individuals charged with misdemeanors, community courts can provide critical linkages, influence and accountability in assisting homeless individuals in overcoming homelessness and in reducing street homelessness in communities.  As a case in point, the Midtown Community Court handled 1,832 cases involving individuals who reported themselves to be homeless during 2005 and 2006.   The opportunity is clear: intervening in the community court setting to address a defendant’s homelessness can reduce the use of jails, make optimal use of the coercive powers of the court, employ problem-solving resources to reduce homelessness and produce prudent, safe and cost effective outcomes for communities. And as Maryann can attest, involving community courts in community strategies to end homelessness can produce just, humane and life enhancing outcomes for homeless defendants.