Tony Hannigan, LMSW, Executive Director, Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS)

Homelessness is a confluence of systemic failures: an insufficient supply of affordable housing, for instance, and personal instability, defined as unemployment, addictions to substances and alcohol, mental illness or other health problems. One characteristic that unites all homeless people, however, is poverty. Effectively working with people who are homeless, formerly homeless or at-risk of falling into this extreme state of poverty and vulnerability requires skilled interventions and advocacy on multiple levels.

Columbia University Origins

The Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS) has remained inextricably linked to social work since our establishment in 1979 as a program of the Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW). Although now incorporated as an independent non-profit, we have remained a “social work” organization; our focus is exclusively on people who have no-incomes or low-incomes, and social workers are the helping professionals specifically oriented and trained to be advocates and practitioners in this area.     

Today, CUCS is one of the nation’s largest providers of mental health and social services in permanent supportive housing. We currently offer assistance to more than 1,600 individuals and families in NYC, most of whom are formerly homeless. CUCS conducts street outreach, operates a drop-in center and two transitional residences for homeless, psychiatrically disabled men and women. We have an extensive citywide, multi-county apartment locater program for homeless people, including unplaced victims of fire and building condemnations. We also operate the Career Network, a citywide job placement and training program for individuals who have multiple barriers to employment.

Reflecting our genesis at Columbia University, CUCS is a highly regarded provider of training and technical assistance to other housing and human service organizations. We work nationally with mental health and HIV/AIDS agencies, grassroot groups, and local governments to help shape their systems of response to homeless and indigent populations.  

The Number of Social Workers

CUCS has 300 staff, and the number of social workers we employ tells an important story: 87% of executive staff are Masters in Social Work; all staff with oversight responsibility for programs are social workers as well as 25% of all direct care and training staff. Each year we also sponsor a field-training unit for graduate and undergraduate social work students, some of whom stay or return to CUCS after they graduate. We believe no profession other than social work is as poised, dedicated, and routinely available to seek out and work on the issues that affect poor people.

We are not able to correct every problem we encounter, as medical professionals are unable to cure all maladies and diseases. But the ethics and practice of the social work profession help ensure a standard of quality throughout CUCS’s many and varied program sites. Our professional standards for starting with the client’s presenting problem, providing staff supervision, working from a systems perspective, and engaging in advocacy are among the core social work protocols that have shaped our operational framework.

Shelter System also Benefits from Best Practices

During the past two years, CUCS has been deeply engaged in the “science to service” movement, and we have successfully implemented several evidence-based practices for persons with mental illness, which include Wellness Self Management and Family Psycho-Education. CUCS was awarded a 2005 Exemplary Program Award from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for our work in bringing these interventions into the NYC municipal shelter system. In our view, best practice interventions often do not get to people in lower socio-economic groups, particularly the homeless.

CUCS is working on various levels to solve homelessness, but we remain mindful that our most important commitments are to those we serve. A shelter resident who has a diagnosis of “Major Depressive Disorder” and had been homeless for over a year recently completed several months of training in our Wellness Self Management program before moving into a permanent supportive housing program of her choice. Though not without difficult challenges and crossroads, throughout her stay with CUCS she expressed satisfaction regarding the personal clarity she obtained in the program, saying, “the staff is genuinely interested in what I want to accomplish. They help me work on my goals and interests.” That, of course, is social work.