Bulletin Board
The place where you can stay up to date with the latest events, stories, news, and opportunities for our City Relief community.
Trauma is A Part Of The Story | Veteran Homelessness Week 3
Over the last two weeks, we've explored barriers veterans face when accessing housing, healthcare, and other support. We've discussed missing documentation, complex systems, and the difficulty of navigating resources while in crisis.
This week, I want to explore something less visible: trauma.
Before we go further, it's worth acknowledging that the word trauma is used frequently these days. Sometimes it accurately describes genuinely life-altering experiences. Other times it's used more casually for situations that were uncomfortable, frustrating, or disappointing.
As a result, many people have grown skeptical of the term. The more broadly it's applied, the harder it can be to recognize and respond to trauma when it's truly present.
Veteran Homelessness And The Three Barriers That Fuel It | Week 2
Last week, I wrote about the progress our country has made in reducing veteran homelessness. Since 2010, veteran homelessness has been cut by more than half nationwide!
That's remarkable progress.
But it also raises an important question: If housing programs, healthcare benefits, disability assistance, and other resources exist specifically for veterans, why do thousands of veterans still experience homelessness every night?
After fifteen years of street outreach, I've learned that the challenge is often not the absence of help. It's access. At City Relief, we regularly meet veterans who qualify for support but struggle to obtain it. While every story is different, three barriers come up again and again.
Housing First, Not Housing Only - Our Efforts Week 4
So even though help technically existed, it remained out of reach. That gap between eligibility and accessibility is where people like James get stuck. Which brings us to one of the most talked-about approaches to homelessness: Housing First.
Housing First began in the early 1990s through the work of Sam Tsemberis in New York City. At the time, most programs required people to prove they were “housing ready” before being given access to permanent housing.
Housing First flipped that.
How a Story About Starfish Tells the Tale of Homelessness. Our Efforts Week 2
A few weeks ago, I was having breakfast with a longtime donor, and we found ourselves circling a familiar frustration: it feels like all the money New York City is spending on homelessness isn’t actually making a dent.
I get why it feels that way. A recent Washington Post headline said it plainly: Spending More Money on Homelessness Isn’t Helping. In March of 2025, City Relief was pushed out of our weekly outreach location on 14th Street in Manhattan. A local developer threatened our partner with a cease-and-desist, arguing that our two-hour pop-up was attracting more people experiencing homelessness than it was helping transition into stability.
Why Our Efforts to Solve Homelessness Are Falling Short (Week 1)
I met a woman last week at our Chelsea Park outreach. I’ll call her “K.”
K is articulate, soft-spoken, and in her forties. She’s the kind of person you could stand next to in church, sit beside on the subway, or pass in line at Starbucks and you wouldn’t think twice. She doesn’t panhandle, use drugs, or experience mental illness (at least not from what I could tell).
She graduated high school and took some college classes. She’s thoughtful, aware, and doing her best to navigate a system that often feels impossible to understand. And yet, K is experiencing homelessness. She’s currently living in a shelter, trying to survive on about $200 a month in SNAP benefits and $22 a month in cash assistance.