Breaking Ground COVID-19 Updates

Across New York City, hundreds of Breaking Ground employees are providing outreach to unsheltered New Yorkers who sleep on the streets, helping meet people’s fundamental needs at our three transitional housing sites, and protecting more than 4,000 residents at home in our permanent supportive and affordable housing.

When you support us, you are enabling this essential work to continue now and beyond the COVID-19 crisis.

Breaking Ground outreach teams are on the streets of Brooklyn, Queens and Midtown Manhattan 24 hours a day, including right now during the COVID-19 crisis. Our teams work to build relationships with unsheltered New Yorkers, understand their needs, and help them navigate to the services and housing resources that will help them rebuild their lives. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to unsheltered homelessness. Whether our clients utilize transitional housing, a low-barrier stabilization bed, or want to move directly from the street into an apartment, we work with each person at their speed. Though change may not happen immediately, we work to find solutions that last a lifetime.

Our outreach teams are COVID-19 heroes – providing a lifeline to unsheltered New Yorkers on the streets and working throughout this crisis to help people continue to come indoors, protect their health, and get connected to services.

Our safe haven transitional housing sites go beyond the emergency shelter approach by providing intensive onsite wraparound services including case management, housing and benefit specialists, harm reduction services, primary medical and psychiatric care, and more.

During COVID-19, we have taken steps to reduce density and promote physical distancing at our three safe havens. This has included, in some cases, delivering meals directly to individuals in their units, promoting staggered use of shared bathroom facilities, and providing social services through remote connections with clients.

We are especially grateful to our Resident Assistants, Maintenance, and Security teams at all three of our Safe Havens. These COVID-19 heroes are protecting each other and our clients from the spread of the disease 24 hours a day, all while ensuring that our facilities are safe and that the fundamental needs of our clients are met.

Across our 20 permanent housing sites, our great staff are protecting each other and our more than 4,000 tenants in supportive housing. This includes maintenance staff, engineers, superintendents, security, rent administrators, assistant program directors, building directors, all working together toward the same goal - to help our formerly homeless and low-income tenants maintain housing for the long term. And right now, that means protetcting their health during a global pandemic.

The courage and dedication of the entire Breaking Ground team in the face of enormous challenges is an inspiriation.

I hope you’ll join me us celebrating this essential work. Your gift to Breaking Ground today will help us:

• Source and order personal protective equipment for our staff and clients in the months ahead.
• Provide essential services on the streets, at our drop-in center in queens, and our transitional housing sites in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
• Continue to help people move off the streets and into a permanent home – where each person can protect their health and rebuild their lives.

This pandemic has shone a spotlight on the importance of having a safe, secure place to call home. Your donation today will help many more vulnerable New Yorkers find a home with Breaking Ground. Thank you.