 |
Background
Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter, Inc. (NCS) is dedicated to providing housing and support that can transform lives. Together with its partners in the community, NCS's dedicated board, staff and volunteers demonstrate what neighbors can do to reduce, prevent and ultimately end homelessness.
Established in 1982 by religious and community leaders on Manhattan's Upper East Side, NCS provides housing and supportive services to homeless and formerly homeless single adults and to youth, ages 18-25, who are aging out of foster care or are homeless.
NCS’s core expertise is in serving New Yorkers who are the most difficult to engage and house—men and women who have been homeless for long periods of time and who face complex challenges, such as mental illness and chemical addiction, that make it difficult for them to seek out or receive support. In addition to providing housing, NCS has a dedicated and caring staff that assists individuals in their journey to independent living through counseling and treatment, educational and vocational training, job placement and financial education. NCS's 28 years of experience and its progressive research agenda help to better understand the root causes of homelessness, improve service delivery and advance its mission.
Programs and Services
• NCS Residence in Manhattan is a permanent home for 65 formerly homeless adults. On-site supportive services assist tenants to gain the confidence and skills they need to live independently.
• Louis Nine House in The Bronx provides affordable housing and an integrated continuum of support services designed to help young adults, aged 18-25, who have aged out of foster care to achieve stability, maintain sobriety, and work towards the self-sufficiency needed to obtain and sustain permanent housing, jobs and independent lives.
• New Vistas and Transitions in The Bronx provide transitional housing for men and women, providing a combination of a structured living environment, case management, psychiatric services, vocational education and job training, which enable participants to achieve stability and practice the skills needed to live independently.
• OPTIONS is NCS's vocational and education program, providing a range of services designed to develop marketable job skills and prepare homeless men and women for the workplace. It also provides educational assessment and computer instruction.
• Emporium Online in The Bronx is a 16-week on-the-job training program, through which homeless and formerly homeless men and women operate an online virtual store selling new and gently used donated items such as CDs, DVDs, video games, software and books.
• Chance for Change in Manhattan, NCS’s state-licensed Outpatient Services, provides alcohol and drug education and treatment in individual and group sessions, psychiatric services and acupuncture to chronically homeless men and women who struggle with chemical dependency.
• NCS Shelter provides overnight sleeping accommodations, meals and showers for 12 men, living on the streets or steps of churches in the Upper East Side community. Opened in January 2010, and funded by the City through June, it is housed at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.
• Neighborhood Center for Homeless People (NCHP) in Manhattan was a drop-in center operated by NCS for 19 years. Because of changing homeless policies, the City ended the funding for the program and NCHP closed in June 2008.
NCS is a member of the East Side Homeless Network (ESHN), a partnership of three homeless service agencies on the Upper East Side: Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter, Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, and Yorkville Common Pantry. As a collective, the ESHN provides food, shelter, clothing, case management, referrals, street outreach, permanent and transitional housing, vocational services, a food pantry, and meal programs to homeless adults
Along with its direct service programming, NCS professional staff have worked with members of the Yale University faculty to study the characteristics of chronically homeless adults through clinical trials and assessment studies. The principal investigators and NCS staff published their first research study in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry in 2005. The findings of NCS's second study were published in 2008 in the Journal of Personality Disorders.
Headquartered on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the NCS has a staff of approximately 50 and a budget of about $4 million. To learn more about NCS, go to www.ncsinc.org.
|  |
