The city is seeking providers to operate an additional 190 units of Justice-Involved Supportive Housing—affordable units paired with support services for people with mental health needs who tend to cycle between jail and homeless shelters.

New York City is seeking providers to operate an additional 190 units of Justice-Involved Supportive Housing—affordable apartments paired with support services for people with mental or behavioral health needs who tend to cycle between jail, hospitals and homeless shelters.

Homeless and criminal justice advocates have been calling for the city to expand the niche program, known as JISH, as a means to reduce both the number of people behind bars and in its shelter system. Stable housing and access to mental health care is key to helping people avoid returns to jail, officials say: almost 90 percent of current JISH participants—living in 120 units across the city—had no further arrests since joining the initiative, which launched in 2015.

“Nearly 30 percent of our patients report being homeless prior to entering jail or likely to be unhoused on release,” Dr. Patsy Yang, senior vice president for Correctional Health Services, which provides health care in the city’s jails, said in a statement announcing the planned JISH expansion. “Each one deserves the chance to return safely and successfully to the community.”

City Hall released a request for proposals (RFP) earlier this month seeking operators to open the additional 190 JISH apartments, thanks to a $4.8 million funding boost included in the last budget deal. Earlier city efforts to grow the program had previously failed to take off: providers largely declined to bid on a 2019 RFP, telling City Limits the funding rates were too low to adequately provide the housing and services required.

But advocates cheered the city’s latest request, saying it’s “in line with service funding provided in comparable programs across New York City,” said Gary Jenkins, interim CEO of Urban Pathways, which runs 30 of the existing JISH apartments.

“We are thrilled to see Mayor Mamdani taking such a significant step so quickly toward closing the revolving door between jail and homelessness,” said Darren Mack, director of Freedom Agenda at the Urban Justice Center, in a statement to City Limits.

“It means so much, not just for the tenants, but for what the providers are able to do,” said Rob DeLeon, interim president and CEO at The Fortune Society, which currently operates JISH housing for roughly 60 people, where residents have access to medical and behavioral health care, medication management, job training, art programs and other resources.

The latest round of funding includes the option of a congregate model—where tenants in the program are housed within the same building run by a nonprofit, rather than “scattered-site” units rented in privately-run properties—which advocates say can offer participants a deeper sense of community and easier access to programs.

“When you’re in a congregate setting, it’s as simple as having folks come downstairs,” DeLeon said. “Or if you’re meeting with them right in their units and checking in on how they’re doing and all of those things, you don’t have very far to go to meet with a number of people that you’re serving.”

The planned 190 new apartments will bring the total number of JISH units to 390, officials said. That count includes 83 affordable rentals planned for an underused building on the Jacobi Hospital Campus in the Bronx, which will primarily house people with complex medical needs after they leave city jails.

The project, dubbed “Just Home” had spurred furious opposition from some locals, prompting former Mayor Eric Adams to pull his support for it last fall after years of planning. New Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced last month that his administration would restart the plan.

“By housing New Yorkers who are too often left on the streets or shuttled through emergency rooms, Just Home meets our housing crisis with dignity,” Mamdani said in a statement at the time.

Just Home is now expected to break ground by the end of this year or early next year, said DeLeon of Fortune, which will build and operate the facility.

Still, even with the expected expansion, the JISH network will fall short of what the city pledged in 2019 as part of its agreement to close the notorious jail complex on Rikers Island and replace it with smaller borough-based jails. That deal initially called for 500 JISH units, a nod to the important role access to housing plays in lowering the number of people behind bars.

But advocates say they’re hopeful new Mayor Mamdani will eventually reach that goal. “His messaging is really about meeting the moment, helping all New Yorkers to live lives of dignity,” said DeLeon.

“We are locked in, in this journey, this mission, to get individuals housed,” he added. “To help them to be whole and not to continue to be judged for their worst mistakes for the rest of their lives.”

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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