Stop and stand anywhere in the woods of Ulster County over the last week and without even a breeze blowing you can watch the leaves fall from the trees. In five days, the overnight temperature is predicted to drop down to 39 degrees Fahrenheit.
The first hallmarks of the approaching winter are omens of hard times to come for the homeless of Ulster County.
According to assistant deputy executive Evan Menist, a point in time count just conducted on October 15 places the number of residents currently experiencing homelessness at 508, double the average number of individuals struggling to find housing recorded in 2021.
The increase in the number of the unhoused couldn’t be coming at a worse time for a county already stressed beyond available resources. So it is hopeful news to hear from county executive Jen Metzger that up to 50 units will be coming back online for the Department of Social Services (DSS) to provide temporary emergency housing.
They’ll be in a familiar setting, the old Rodeway Motel at Skytop in the Town of Ulster, now renamed the Kingston Motel.
The news comes as something of a surprise because the county had halted the placement of individuals at that location in May of this year after reports of unsanitary and hazardous conditions reached the ear of the county executive.
“The proximate cause [of the closing] was that we got notification about this SPDES permit [State Pollution Discharge Elimination System] not being renewed,” said Metzger. “But I had also done my own surprise on-site visit in response to concerns that had been raised.”
Metzger acknowledges that county agents have been working with motel management for months to secure improvements well beyond coming into compliance with Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regulations. Rooms, grounds and amenities have all seen upgrades in the interim.
“I gave them a checklist of conditions that had to be met in order for us to resume placements here,” said Metzger. “And they were very agreeable to doing them.”
Rugs were pulled up. Smoke alarms were replaced. Electrical outlets were covered. Hot and cold water were ensured. A filtered-water bottle pitcher filling station has been installed in the main lobby.
Mukash Patel, owner of the hotel for the past six years, has completed the renovation of 24 rooms so far and expects to complete the renovations necessary to bring the remaining rooms back on line in the next two weeks.
Ending a dystopian carousel
When placement resumes today, October 20, the plan is to focus solely on housing families experiencing homelessness. This explains the modest playset Patel added in a central grassy area which used to contain a dog park.
“The expectation is to place four families here tomorrow that we know have to leave their accommodation,” said Metzger yesterday, “and we can place more next week.”
Regardless of whether unhoused individuals have located more permanent housing, state law requires hotel stays to end around a 21-day mark. After that, they must then head back down to the DSS office to reapply for emergency housing. This dystopian carousel is set in motion with those affected needing once again to pack up their belongings and retrace their steps back through the system from which they emerged in search of yet more temporary housing. Rooms can be found anywhere among 20 motels throughout the county.
In order to coordinate placements, the county must keep track of the individual timelines of those nearing the end of their stay. “We’ve been doing advocacy around making it more flexible, given the emergency housing needs, because it’s very hard on people,” Metzger said. “It’s very hard on families and constant moving. It’s already very hard to fit all your belongings into one place.”
While the Kingston Motel has 60 rooms, it will be offering 50 to the county. There will be times when more conventional hotel guests will need a larger percentage of the rooms. Currently the workforce necessary to do a job for a solar company is taking up quite a few rooms, for instance.
Even with the best intentions, the county sometimes comes up short. “We have people being placed out of county,” Metzger conceded, “because of the lack of available emergency housing options here.”
A reassuring picture
The chance to help families in need at the $110 flat rate a day guaranteed by DSS seemed an attractive incentive to Patel. From the county’s perspective, the opportunity to chip away at the number of unhoused residents by focusing on families in need constitutes an ideal symbiotic relationship.
An estimated 100 families in Ulster County are currently struggling to find housing. Assuming a bare minimum of two members per family, and only 40 rooms dependably available, Patel’s offer was a chance to increase the supply of rooms by a third.
In addition, a regular complaint about the location, that it’s isolated, has become an asset. The view from the Skytop is beautiful. Imagining the grassy central green area playground populated with gamboling children, even in the snow, is a reassuring picture.
The county has plans for a shuttle bus to save the inhabitants the trouble of walking up and down the steep hill with grocery bags or of waiting at the bottom to catch a bus along Route 28, a stretch of highway often thick with traffic.
“We are for the first time bringing UCAT bus service for anyone staying here,” said Metzger. “This will help the families quite a bit. In the near term, we’re going to have a UCAT shuttle. But we’re in the process actually creating a new route in response to a different set of needs that this would be a part of.”
While the bus wouldn’t take motel occupants directly to DSS, it would take them to the Kingston Plaza, the central hub for UCAT bus services in Ulster County as well as the location of a Hannaford’s grocery store.
“For now the shuttle will go from here to Hannaford and back. Hannaford is the hub for making connections to any of the other buses,” said Metzger. “No matter where they want to go, they’ll be able to get to the Hannaford.”
In the interim the shuttle is expected to run every two to three hours.
A new DSS staff resource
“We’ve had a huge increase in emergency housing needs which far exceed capacity in Ulster County,” said Metzger. “Closing the Rodeway to DSS placements was a way to actually get leverage to get improvements that were important to make but also gave us an opportunity to fold in other improvements in terms of services. This is going to actually give us the ability, potentially, to meet a huge need that we haven’t been able to meet locally.”
One of those services will be the creation of a dedicated housing and homelessness unit within DSS. If the legislature agrees, a position of emergency housing resource coordinator will be created so the unit can oversee the temporary housing process.
“I’m really excited to also pilot this approach of having a DSS staff resource person spending time on site each day,” said Metzger. “It gives us eyes on the whole property. but also we can build relationships with people to better serve their wider needs, This resource coordinator would rotate around placement sites where we tend to have a lot of placements.”
The DSS representative could help fill out paperwork, counsel those that need it how to navigate the housing process onsite, and help identify individual needs — all while keeping an eye on the living conditions.
“Mukash has generously given our staff space to be here,” said Metzger. “We also expect them to be out around talking with people as well.”
Ulster County sheriff Juan Figueroa has signed off on increased patrols by his department’s deputies to ensure the safety of those in emergency housing at Skytop.
“I have to say getting this place back, it’s huge,” said Metzger, “because we have just really been confronting day in and day out this challenge of dealing with soaring rates of people in need of emergency housing, and, the ability to, you know, expand our inventory, the possibilities for placement. This is going to be a huge benefit locally. A lot of our placements are individuals and families from the Kingston area. So the majority of this is where this is where the biggest need is geographically.”
Just in time for winter.
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