Testimony Highlighting the Impact of the Digital Divide on New York City’s Homeless Population

NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE AND SUBCOMMITTEE ON ZONING AND FRANCHISES OVERSIGHT HEARING

BROADBAND AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

OCTOBER 13, 2020

The New York City Bar Association, through its Social Welfare Committee and Education and the Law Committee, submit this testimony to highlight the impact of the digital divide on New York City’s homeless population.[1]

COVID-19 has exacerbated the homelessness crisis in New York City. The unprecedented public health emergency and resulting economic freefall deeply devastated the lives of homeless families and individuals. As of July 2020, there were 58,089 homeless people, including 13,046 homeless families with 19,278 homeless children, sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system.[2]While state regulations require that certain services be provided to shelter residents, City-funded shelters overwhelmingly lack one essential service — access to technology. Such access is essential to reduce the length of residents’ stay and facilitate their exit into permanent housing. The need to communicate through internet-based applications is particularly acute right now.  Access to everything from city offices and classrooms to real estate listings and governmental offices is accessible online, and such online access is preferred and is safer, preventing unnecessary in-person contact.

Yet thousands of shelter residents lack basic access to the internet. The City Bar documented this problem. In May 2020, the City Bar Justice Center (CBJC) released a Report titled “Homeless Need Internet Access To Find a Home: How Access to Internet and Technology Resources can Support Homeless Families Transition out of Homeless Shelters” (the Report). This report and its recommendations are endorsed by a wide range of organizations, including law firms, legal services providers, corporations, and community groups. A copy of the report and an endorsement list is annexed hereto.[3]The Report lays bare the devastating consequences of New York City’s stark digital divide on the lives of our unhoused neighbors. Without reliable internet access, shelter residents are unable to search and apply for permanent housing, search and apply for jobs, participate in remote classrooms and complete assigned homework, apply for government benefits, obtain necessary medical and mental health care, stay connected to friends and family or even access basic entertainment.

Allowing the lack of access to remain unaddressed is unacceptable. The pandemic has significantly exacerbated the barriers resulting from the City’s digital divide, raising the stakes to literally life-or-death. Homeless parents are forced to risk their child’s health and safety for the sake of their education or subject them to a subpar educational experience with either limited or inconsistent access to remote learning.  With no internet access in shelters and unreliable internet-enabled devices, Wi-Fi, and connections, in person learning is the only viable option for their children to receive an education.[4] Prior to the pandemic, 87% of the students who experienced homelessness were more likely to drop out of school.[5] Only 57% of homeless City students graduated from high school.^[6] One in four homeless students was proficient in math and science overall, compared to a third or more of housed low-income students.[7] These numbers will only worsen from the pandemic. Experts predict that students could lose seven to eleven months of learning, if remote learning is done until January 2021.[8]

Ensuring internet access for homeless New Yorkers is also an issue of racial justice. New Yorkers of color are disproportionately represented among those experiencing homelessness. Eighty-six percent of homeless single adults and 93% of heads-of-household in family shelters identify as Black or Hispanic – significantly higher than the 53% of New York City’s population overall who identify as Black or Hispanic.[9] Moreover, 85% of New York City students who experienced homelessness were Black and Hispanic.[10] Black and Hispanic New Yorkers generally, and homeless New Yorkers specifically, have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Any policy that enables homeless New Yorkers to prevent increased exposure to COVID by affirmatively bridging the digital divide they face, is an essential step to address racial disparities in New York City.

RECOMMENDATIONS

New York City has long been a leader in ensuring that its homeless residents have access to shelter, and these times demand that the City now lead the way in providing technology access to its shelter residents. We are dealing with a public health emergency, and it is clear that the City must act quickly in order to meet its basic responsibilities to its unhoused residents. The Mayor’s Office released an “Internet Master Plan,” a city-wide plan to increase the availability of Internet throughout its five boroughs. However, that plan does not include a single reference to shelters or the unique access needs of our City’s unhoused residents.[11] The plan ignores the homeless population.  In July the City announced it would be accelerating broadband deployment in all five boroughs, prioritizing public housing communities, which have suffered disproportionately during the COVID-19 pandemic.[12] That announcement also failed to explicitly indicate that City-funded properties serving as shelters would be included. We appreciate the extraordinary efforts the City is taking to respond to the crisis – the pandemic has, and will continue to, expose the cracks in our systems that disadvantage our most vulnerable populations. It is vital that the City ensure that the thousands of New Yorkers who are homeless and residing in shelters are included in these plans.[13]

We urge the City Council to help address this digital divide and work with the Mayor’s Office and all related agencies to ensure that City-funded homeless shelters are prioritized in any plans to expand broadband and internet access.  This includes providing access to the following in every City shelter:

• Reliable Wi-Fi connections for all shelter residents;
• Updated Internet-ready computers, tablets, or other devices;
• Wireless or Bluetooth printers with scanners, or printers that maintain connections with the shelter’s computers, tablets or other word processing devices.

This must be a sustained commitment and we strongly urge the City Council to consult with all stake holders as it devises a plan to provide internet access in shelters.

 ***

Thank you for your service to New Yorkers during these challenging times. We look forward to working with you to help meet this moment.