The New York Times recently featured an article on cluster-siting, a controversial city program aimed at housing the homeless that impacts the Bronx in a disproportionate manner. It’s time to rethink this old problem. And as one seeking to serve the public in City Council, it’s time to formulate a public policy solution … smartly and quickly.

Cluster-site housing has become the Bloomberg administration’s primary tool for sheltering 47,000 homeless, a record city high and a population that includes 20,000 children.

By providing enormous subsidies to residential landlords, the city has quietly, possibly permanently, altered the affordable housing market. The subsidies may be as high as $3,000/month per room – many times more than what’s obtained from rent stabilized tenants. Over a decade ago, cluster-siting was intended to replace an equally unpopular strategy, scatter-site housing, and gained momentum after federal and state funds for providing Section 8 housing vouchers to the working poor disappeared.

The new trend is disturbing. Rent-paying tenants are harassed or bought out of their existing apartments so landlords can rush headlong into this lucrative program. They may wind up homeless themselves or submit to remaining in a distressed building with a huge influx of homeless tenants. The city arranges for security and the provision of social services to the new tenants, which comes at enormous expense to taxpayers – significantly more than what would have been paid had the city replaced the lost federal and state money with its own under the now defunct Department of Homeless Services (DHS) Advantage program.

Too often the beneficiary is not the tenants but the for-profit companies with whom the city contracts, such as Aguila Inc. Aguila is run by former DHS commissioner Robert Hess. Currently the Comptroller’s office is auditing $10 million in payments to Aguila, and a 2011 audit showed that Aguila-operated buildings had more than 1,700 open code violations.

Despite these problems, DHS is rapidly moving families into cluster-sites. In 2009, it folded 1,500 units into the program; last year, it added 2,011. The vast majority of these units are located in the Bronx and often emerge from the city’s limited supply of rent-stabilized housing. Some are located nearby, such as 3001 Briggs Ave. in Bedford Park and 16-19 Mosholu Parkway in Norwood.

Cluster-siting is a form of civic cannibalism. Communities are losing affordable housing to solve the immediate crisis of homelessness. We must shelter the homeless in the most responsible manner available and provide a real path out of poverty.

Social service providers take a broader, more holistic view. A Norwood housing advocate on Bainbridge Avenue related that a typical client facing imminent eviction is a single mother, hopelessly behind in rent payments – a symptom of a larger problem such as domestic or substance abuse, under- or unemployment, or a systemic health problem.

These frontline social service providers have an incredible record of mitigating such problems, but they are under siege, fighting without adequate support from their local elected officials and a city government more interested in balanced budgets than long-term solutions.

Most of the people seeking help in Norwood are not on public assistance; they are the working poor, our neighbors, and need tools to lift themselves out of their difficult circumstances. A city and state that cares about fixing community problems, rather than funding expensive Band-Aids – or worse, turning a blind eye – has several tools at its disposal: increasing the state minimum wage, passing and implementing a real living wage law and a paid sick leave act, reinstating DHS’ Advantage program, adequately supporting organizations that advocate for tenants’ rights, and “redesigning” Medicaid without gutting it.

FDR said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Perhaps it’s time for some old-fashioned progress.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece was originally published in the April 4-17 print edition of the Norwood News. Cliff Stanton is a Democratic candidate for City Council, a community activist, and a small business owner.