Greene and Columbia saw state’s largest spike in homelessness, report shows

CATSKILL―A chessboard-style strategy is being utilized by Greene County Department of Social Services Commissioner Kira Pospesel, needing to keep a handle on the swelling and shifting realities of homelessness.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, in a recent report, declared that “homelessness falls statewide, but rises in many regions.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) most recent data show that the homeless population in New York dropped from January 2024 by nearly 8 percent to 145,560 in January 2025. The decrease of 12,459 people was the largest of any state and was driven primarily by declines in New York City, according to DiNapoli.

However, the declines were not universal across the state. In 17 of 25 regions known as Continuums of Care, homelessness grew, the comptroller’s report says. HUD data shows the largest increase―58.9 percent―was in Columbia and Greene counties.

The soaring local figures, more than tripling, come as no great surprise to Pospesel, a regular visitor to the county legislature chambers, giving updates on what she unhesitatingly terms “a statewide crisis.”

“Our numbers are through the roof,” Pospesel said this week, while looking beyond the data and statistics.

“The model we have [for handling homelessness] is an absolute failure,” Pospesel said, noting that is relies on a network of hotels and reiterating what she has steadfastly been telling lawmakers.

“We need a shelter,” Pospesel continued. “It is a failure by the county, not building a shelter. I say that at every meeting of department heads.”

“A hotel is not what the clients need. It is what some of them want,” she explained, pointing out that hotel rooms offer amenities like televisions and an absence of rules associated with a shelter, such as restrictions on smoking or alcohol.

The homeless, she says, “need services, not games and crazy things that can go on in a hotel.”

“They need a meal, health care, in some instances day care, mental stabilization,” Pospesel said.

“The goal of DSS is to treat whatever issues they have. People die in these situations. The pain and suffering I see…,” she continued, not finishing her thought.

Homelessness is a complex subject. DiNapoli’s report hails the positive drop in the Big Apple while citing the “troubling increase” elsewhere, particularly in Greene and Columbia counties.

The comptroller’s report does not offer specifics on what has happened to the 12,000-plus former homeless―whether they have established sustainable roots or simply gone somewhere else or off the grid.

And, despite the decline, the report says the share of homeless children “remains stubbornly high: at 31.7 percent,” pointing out that “New York’s rate is more than double that of the rest of the nation.”

Legislature Chairman Patrick Linger has seen the DiNapoli report, saying, “I don’t agree with it at all,” in terms of the factual analysis.

There is no disputing the upward homeless population in the county but the issue is larger than bar graphs.

“This boils down to the State mandating things but not paying for them,” Linger says.

“Some years back we were going to do a 19-bed shelter” on county-owned land adjacent to the county jail in the town of Coxsackie, Linger noted.

“Once you go above that bed count, there are more requirements such as meals and laundry facilities. We talked to Catholic Charities about maybe administering it. The requirements became onerous,” he said.

“I would not say there is any talk about doing a shelter now. If the State requires us to do it we would have no choice but that is an enormous expense to put on our taxpayers,” Linger said.

Meanwhile, back at the DSS ranch, Linger acknowledged that “Kira is pulling her hair out.”

“She is the one tasked with putting people in housing. She is doing the best she possibly can with what she has,” Linger said.

Legislator Michael Bulich of Catskill was critical of the comptroller’s report, opining that DiNapoli is a “flat our liar.”

Bulich, a frequent objector of State policies, questioned whether Greene County should be obliged to house out-of-county homeless.

“We should really look at who our actual residents are before discussing a potential shelter,” Bulich said.

“I understand Kira saying what she does. It would make her life a lot easier but that opens a whole can of worms and would be beyond-measure expensive,” Bulich added.

Greene County DSS remains on the homelessness front lines. The current hotel system, “is such a waste of taxpayer dollars,” Pospesel said.

Hotel occupancies cost Greene County around $1.2 million in fiscal year 2025.

And it’s not just DSS money, Pospesel said. It involves law enforcement, too.

“We are chasing these people around, Monday through Friday. We are calling in (county) law enforcement every day. What my team does is absolutely incredible,” Pospesel said.

Pospesel estimates that “if we had a shelter, the numbers [of homeless clients] would drop by 50 percent.”

“They are coming here because of the model we have,” she said,

And the problem goes deeper than data. Greene County uses as many as nine hotels but that small network is tapped into by other counties.

“Every time I lose a room in one place, I have to find another room in another place,” Pospesel says.

Other counties are not required to notify Greene County, despite requests from local officials to establish lines of communication, resulting in seemingly infinite chess piece moves for DSS.

There are shelters available in neighboring counties, but potential clients have reportedly also learned how to juggle the system, calling in after normal work hours so to be sent to hotels rather than shelters.

It has not been put in action but the DSS, if necessary, has a Code Blue backup plan to transform the agency’s reception lobby into temporary refuge, an alternative widely considered an Armageddon option.

In the meantime, lawmakers are not inclined to create a local shelter due to costs and the difficulties of finding a suitable site that could overcome an entrenched “Not in My Backyard” resistance by nearby residents.

“They [county legislators] think if we build a shelter they will come,” Pospesel said. “But they are already here.”

“The reality is any one of us could be two paychecks away from sitting in my lobby. We have people who have had a real crisis. There could be a severe medical issue, a divorce with children, a fire,” she continued.

“We are number one in putting people back to work,” Pospesel said, referencing a recent rating of excellence from New York State.

“There needs to be a main center where we can do our work. We are just warehousing people,” she said. “Building a shelter is expensive but in the long run it would be less costly. It’s the right thing to do.”