ITEMS TO NOTE
December Office Hours
Office hours for December will be held at Naughter’s (1809 5th Ave) on Thursday, December 19 from 1:30-3 pm. Please stop by to chat about the City budget, neighborhood improvements, or any other issues you might have.
You can always reach me via email at aaron.vera@troyny.gov.
H.E.A.P. (Home Energy Assistance Program)
With winter weather finally upon us, many residents, especially those in older buildings, are looking at spiking energy costs for the winter months. For National Grid customers, the window to apply for H.E.A.P. (Home Energy Assistance Program, a federally-funded grant) benefits is open for the 2024-25 enrollment period until March 17, 2025. Applying is fast and easy, and can save you hundreds of dollars on your energy costs.For anyone facing a heating emergency or a utility shutoff, emergency H.E.A.P. funding is also available through the Rensselaer County Department of Social Services. Please note that the window for emergency H.E.A.P. funding opens Jan 2, 2025.
Holiday Blood Drive at Hedley Building
If you are looking for a way to give back to the community this holiday season, The Troy Police Department, in partnership with the Red Cross, is hosting a holiday blood drive on Tues Dec 10 at 433 River St, 9th Floor, in memory of Sgt. James O’Brien, who passed away in 2010 after a long battle with leukemia. The drive will be open from 1:30-5:30 pm.
While walk-in donations are welcome, you can always expedite your visit by using the Red Cross appointment scheduler.
Council City Meeting Recaps
November 7: Finance Committee and Regular Meeting
The City Council passed RES147 authorizing a $571,000 professional services contract for engineering and design of a permeant corrosion control (orthophosphate) system at the water plant. The temporary system has been in operation for several months and data on its efficacy should be available early 2025. This is part of a larger effort to reduce lead levels in drinking water.
A vacancy list was presented - as of Nov 7, there are currently 54 vacancies. The longer these critical positions remain unfilled, the lower the quality of service for Troy residents.
The Council passed several ordinances accepting grant funding for the Police Department.
The Council passed RES143 allowing the City to enter into an agreement with Rensselaer County to begin a rental registry for the purposes of identifying lead hazards.
The Council passed RES 144 authorizing Heer Realty, Inc. to market and sell 9 Hills Landing. By listing foreclosed properties on the open market, the City stands to recover more funds than through the foreclosure list.
November 21: Finance Committee
The Finance Committee considered and passed a number of budget transfers to cover line item overages throughout the year, including an additional $900,000 for Fire Department overtime. Most of the surplus funds came from the contingency account or salary savings (due to vacancies) throughout the year. The administration approaching the Council after the fact violates the charter and circumvents an important check on City spending.
The Finance Committee passed RES151 in support of the merger of The Rensselaer Land Trust and The Rensselaer Plateau Alliance. The new entity, Hudson Taconic Lands, manages the conservation of nearly 16,000 acres of land.
Community Spotlight - Joseph's House
As winter approaches, many members of our community without adequate food or a warm place to sleep will turn to local shelters for protection from the elements. When temperatures reach below freezing, law enforcement, government entities, and local social service agencies designate the condition Code Blue, unlocking resources to open shelter beds and ensure unhoused community members receive adequate resources.Joseph’s House and Shelter (74 Ferry St), a secular, community-based non-profit founded in 1983 to help individuals and families in the Capital Region who are housing insecure, is the designated Code Blue Shelter for Rensselaer County, providing a continuum of services to help provide stable housing for those in need.Joseph’s House Executive Director Amy LaFountain was kind enough to sit down and answer some questions about services her organization provides to the Troy community. (Some answers have been edited and condensed.)
I imagine people understand that Joseph’s House provides shelter for those in need, but don’t know exactly what kind of function your organization provides. Could you give us a little more detail on services provided and populations served? - Once someone is in the Joseph’s House system, what services are provided to get them back on their feet and independent?
Sure! At Joseph’s House & Shelter, our mission is to provide non-judgmental services to end homelessness. We provide many services through three core pillars of programming- Homeless services, permanent supported housing, and outreach services, which provides mobile casework and provisions to street homeless in Albany and Rensselaer counties.
Across the board, our Housing First approach means our primary focus is on helping people quickly access and sustain permanent housing. Shelter is not contingent upon factors like sobriety. Joseph’s House & Shelter works with Project Safe Point and county health officials to improve the health and quality of life of people who use drugs in the greater Capital Region through harm reduction.
There is much talk recently of housing insecurity in Troy, and cities nationwide. What are some of the factors contributing to current conditions? - Currently, Rensselaer County DSS provides approximately $336 to help unhoused individuals find housing, an amount unchanged since the 1980s and woefully insufficient in the current market. What kind of local policy changes would be most impactful to your work?
Like many of the challenges related to poverty, homelessness is a man-made problem. The hopeful part of that truth is that it makes the mission of ending homelessness a possible outcome: because the variables that lead to homelessness can be changed, ending homelessness is an outcome we achieve regularly with the people we work with.
Troy is seeing a lack of affordable housing or, more specifically, a lack of diversity in housing stock pricing. We are often asked if job-readiness training or financial management classes are provided for guests at our shelter, but what many people do not realize is that our clients are often employed; they just cannot find affordable housing in our neighborhoods. That’s an area where we have been able to help people—we work with landlords who are still providing housing at a reasonable rate to place people into stable housing.
Systemic challenges also impact our work.
Human services programs have also seen years of austerity from government funders. This not only poses significant challenges on our end (for staffing and the provision of services), but it also means that the people receiving services are often not getting what they need to actually escape homelessness. For example, people relying on government funds can earn “too much money” to no longer be eligible for housing or services, but the threshold is low to the point of cruelty. The result is that people panhandle on corners, work dangerous “under-the-table” jobs, or get caught in other illicit schemes to earn money that does not jeopardize their living situation.
And while these factors serve to make homelessness more visible, the truth is that there are far more homeless people in our community than are ever visible. The County has roughly one hundred homeless families placed in hotels around the Capital Region, while many other people couch-surf, live from their cars, or find other means to get by. This is what we mean when we talk about “invisible” homelessness.
The simple answer is increased funding for these kinds of stipends, and while that’s not wrong, it’s also incomplete.
To ensure that housing is available at an assortment of affordable price points, we would need to execute a comprehensive housing plan that has the full support of our state and federal partners.
For those who might need more assistance, due to substance use, mental health, or medical issues, are there enough resources available to support individuals?
We have amazing programs and services in this area. I know so many of the social workers and substance abuse counselors personally. There are just not enough of them, resulting in challenges to access services and navigating an understaffed system.
Bail reform was much needed to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system, but what was perhaps overlooked in the execution of new policies was how enmeshed our mental health care system is with our criminal justice system. The result is that we are seeing people experiencing profound mental health symptoms go longer without meaningful intervention, and thus their mental health symptoms become more severe as a result. And this has led to all sorts of behavioral health challenges we had not experienced previously.
Turning our attention to colder months ahead, can you tell us a little more about Code Blue shelters and how those operate within the Capital region?
Code Blue is a program that allows shelters to waive certain standards and practices, and become eligible for special funding, to create more room for people to come inside during life-threatening cold weather conditions.
Our shelter staff have worked hard to ensure we are ready to keep as many people as possible out of the cold this season. Winter weather always brings people in who wouldn’t otherwise have sought shelter services and I’m grateful to the many people who make it possible for us to provide our housing first services that put people on a path toward stable housing.
Shelley Rettinger, our Director of Homeless Services, told us that someone had come in during the first night of Code Blue who had been living outside in a wooded area, and that they were so excited when they saw our cots because they knew they were going to get a good night’s rest. And for us, that’s what it’s all about.
What kind of support do you seek from the community?
Support can come in so many ways. Of course financial support. Volunteering support. But from this discussion I envision community support that looks like welcoming the folks that we serve into their own neighborhoods. Being a good neighbor to Joseph's House.
Our Winter Gathering event is this Thursday, December 5. And people can set up one-time or monthly contribution to support our homeless services work at josephshousetroy.org.
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