Council approves reentry-based supportive housing project despite objections from Adams and local rep

On Sept. 25, the New York City Council approved NYC Health + Hospitals’ Just Home proposal for a supportive housing complex on the Jacobi Medical Center campus in the Bronx’s Morris Park. The vote came after several setbacks, including the election of Republican Council Member Kristy Marmorato, who opposes the project, and the Adams administration’s withdrawal of support just weeks earlier.

“Expanding access to safe, stable, and affordable homes for New Yorkers, especially those with past involvement in the justice system and complex medical needs, is critical to public safety and confronting the housing crisis,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. “By approving Just Home on the campus of Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, the Council is once again demonstrating leadership on housing with action and fulfilling our strong commitment to evidence-based public safety solutions.”

Operated by nonprofit Fortune Society, the Just Home project offers 83 entirely affordable housing units including 58 studios for supportive housing dedicated to previously incarcerated individuals dealing with homelessness. Another 24 units are reserved for the NYC Housing Connect portal. All will be leased under a rent-stabilized rate.

The proposal stems from a model based on Castle Gardens, a recognizable West Harlem supportive housing building off Riverside Drive. The development offers 63 supportive housing units for formerly incarcerated individuals, 50 units for the broader West Harlem community, and one for the building’s superintendent. Built in 2002, Castle Gardens also offers a programming space for Manhattan Community Board 9 and operates as a polling center on election days while offering weekly food distribution and hosting back-to-school health fairs. Fortune Society President and CEO Stanley Richards hopes to bring such an approach to Morris Park.

“This model comes out of decades of evidence that shows supportive housing reduces utilization of hospitalizations and provides stability for some of this country’s most vulnerable people,” said Richards in a phone interview. “What Just Home will focus on is a subset of the population who are homeless and have complex medical needs and cycle between emergency room and hospitalization stays and shelters. The shelters are not equipped to deal with the medical needs of the population that Just Home will serve.”

Proponents, including many City Council members, view supportive housing as a key solution to some of the city’s most pressing social challenges. The model provides chronically unhoused individuals with permanent, affordable housing in dedicated developments that also offer services such as medical care and addiction recovery.

To be clear, supportive housing does not exist specifically for formerly incarcerated people — in fact, prison and jail time often disqualifies otherwise eligible unhoused New Yorkers, prompting City Council to pass a law to count time spent behind bars toward minimum requirements. In fact, the opponents of Just Home largely oppose the specific intentions to house formerly-incarcerated individuals rather than the construction of supportive or affordable housing.

However, criminalization and housing remain inextricably linked. Returning citizens face higher rates of homelessness and unhoused people are more likely to be arrested. And housing is shown to significantly decrease recidivism.

Despite overwhelming City Council support, Just Home faced opposition from the project’s own backyard. Marmorato campaigned on opposing such development, upsetting incumbent Marjorie Velázquez in 2023, a little over a year after the project was initially proposed. The council’s vote departs from the traditional deference for the local rep on land use issues. Her office did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

While Marmorato’s opposition remained apparent, Richards believed the Adams administration supported the project for years through Fortune Society’s communications with H+H and NYC Housing Preservation & Development, the city agency providing the supportive housing program loan. But on Sept. 24, a day before the council vote, Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro penned a letter to Speaker Adams against approving the project.

He expressed Mayor Adams’ opposition, which remains exclusive to the Just Home component of housing formerly incarcerated individuals due to Mamorato’s resistance and local backlash among Morris Park residents. The Deputy Mayor added that the administration would go forward with such a project to specifically house formerly incarcerated individuals at another location at Brooklyn’s Broadway Junction, pointing to local councilmember Sandy Nurse’s support for the project. After the vote, Mastro provided a statement lambasting the council’s decision.

“It took the Council nearly two years even to hold a hearing on this authorizing resolution, and now they want to rush it through when it relates to a deal that it knows will no longer happen,” said Mastro. “Moreover, as the most pro-housing administration in the city’s history, we have now presented to the Council a plan that will have more local elected and community buy-in that creates three times the supportive and affordable housing, and twice the Just Home units, as originally contemplated at the Jacobi Hospital site that is opposed by the local Councilmember and overwhelmingly opposed by the community there.”

Richards hopes Fortune Society’s track record will speak for itself for those concerned about Just Home. The service provider dates back to 1967 and served more than 18,000 people last year. More than half of Fortune Society’s staff are formerly incarcerated, including Richards himself.

“Supportive housing in our communities doesn’t make our communities less safe,” he said. “They make them more safe when we provide stability, wrap around services [and] housing that recognizes the dignity of everyone’s humanity. We all benefit from that and so Just Home is going to provide that kind of stability for people who have far too long been isolated, demonized [and have] been characterized by the record they have.

“It’s time for us as a country, but particularly as a city, to not see the worst in any of us, but to see who we could be and strive to put together the resources and support necessary for people to live that life.”