SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — In a rural housing crisis, the length of time spent in emergency housing in hotels and motels has increased in Sullivan County, according to a new study released by the nonprofit Pattern for Progress (PFP).

Social service departments like Sullivan’s have relied on hotels and motels to provide short-term housing for people in need. Hotel and motel placement has been commonly used by social services but is intended to be an emergency placement and short-term.

While the number of families placed in emergency housing in hotels or motels has decreased, the data shows that hotel/motel stays in Sullivan are far longer than the hyper-temporary last-resort option for which they were created.

Sullivan does not have a permanent homeless shelter. With an anemic rental market and rising rental prices, consistently high eviction rates, and homeownership increasingly out of reach, Sullivan families are staying for longer periods of time in hotels and motels than in past years. 

On October 24, the legislature passed a motion to establish housing as a “county purpose,” inching the county forward toward creating an initiative to address housing. The vote merely gives the legislature the legal ability to develop a program where financial resources can be allocated to address affordable housing. 

No funding was allocated with the vote but it accomplishes the next step needed to create a county “housing trust.” Establishing a trust was recommended by Pattern for Progress, which has been working under contract with the county to advise on addressing the county’s housing crisis.

In response to growing concern, in the new report PFP “collected data about the demand for emergency housing and the length of stay for unhoused people and families who were living in hotels and motels.” 

Since 2018, in Sullivan, while there has been a 31 percent decrease in the number of families placed in hotels and motels, the length of stay for families has increased by 75 percent. A decrease of 16 percent among the number of adult-only households placed in hotels and motels is accompanied by a 90 percent increase in length of stay. 

Despite Sullivan being a significantly less populated county than Dutchess and Orange, the number of individuals and couples without children placed in hotels and motels is higher. 

A housing market crisis affects families too. Sullivan has the fourth-highest number of school children living in hotels and motels out of the nine counties in the Hudson Valley. Orange (233), Dutchess (151), Ulster (120) and Sullivan (84) have the greatest number of school children living in hotels and motels.

One of the motels used by Sullivan County’s Department of Health and Human Services to house homeless residents has a history of drug dealing and use. Residents have described that motel, the Knights Inn in Liberty, as having foul odors and loud music. 

Student homelessness has grown despite an overall decline in the number of students in the Hudson Valley. From 2009 to 2023, the number of children in public and charter schools in the Hudson Valley declined by 36,859. Homelessness grew by 2,736 students during that time.

“There should be a complete rethinking of the use of motels to house vulnerable populations in Sullivan County,” according to a grand jury summary. The 100-page report, issued in early January, was written in response to the death of Akasha Luvert, the infant who died at the Knights Inn last May.

Read more about housing in Sullivan and the use of hotels and motels: 

https://www.riverreporter.com/stories/housing-code-red,146456

https://riverreporter.com/stories/housing-and-opioids-combine-in-sullivan-countys-greatest-crisis,132931 

Read the full Pattern for Progress report at https://www.pattern-for-progress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Emergency-Housing-2024-FINAL.pdf