Emergency, Supportive Housing: HV Architecture Firm On New Frontier

Tinkelman Architecture is on a mission.

Source: Patch

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY — Housing for the homeless is a passion for Tinkelman Architecture and its director of architectural services.

The architecture firm does work across a spectrum of housing needs, ranging from luxurious living to essential workforce accommodations, always with an eye toward innovation and social responsibility.

That passion is a real asset to advocates trying to put unhoused Hudson Valley residents into homes that give them dignity as well as support for rebuilding their lives, who need help stretching dollars and navigating the thicket of regulations transient and temporary housing must meet.

The firm’s designers have partnered with agencies and government on several projects to create homeless housing.

Don Petruncola, now Tinkelman Architecture’s Director of Architectural Services, led the planning and design for The Newburgh Ministry’s expansion of a drop-in site into a year-round shelter 20 years ago.

Now the nonprofit has turned to him and Tinkelman Architecture with a new project. To be called Legacy House, it will include 50 studio and one-bedroom apartments for permanent, supportive housing.

He was initially approached by The Newburgh Ministry almost 20 years ago, Petruncola told Patch. "They were running a warming shelter and wanted to create something year-round with true facilities. That relationship has continued to grow and has expanded."

"When The Newburgh Ministry wanted to expand into true permanent housing, they came to me," he said.

In some ways, not a lot has changed in two decades.

"Twenty years ago some of the language was the same as it was last year," Petruncola said. While there are many supporters of the projects, there are others worried about vagrancy and drug dealing. And elsewhere in the country there are new drives to criminalize homelessness.

What he tells opponents of projects like these are that given a living room, a kitchen and a bedroom, the clients will reside there. Concerns about mental health are mitigated by built-in social services.

"The impact is political," he acknowledged. "Say the neighborhood has improved, rents are high, people don’t want their valuation decreasing. That’s part of the societal and political challenges. In Newburgh, some of the opponents said 'why here, Newburgh has had poor people bused in, inmates recently released bused in, why not make some of these other municipalities do their fair share?' The thing is, you've got to build housing for homeless people where the homeless people are."

Trying to balance that with a construction budget that may be very limited is part of the construction process of being an architect, Petruncola said.

"New York State is in a housing emergency. It’s not just people experiencing housing insecurity, it’s everyone," he said.

That's why the firm explored two innovative options as it helped Dutchess County search for a permanent shelter — converting an existing office building or an unneeded jail facility.

Neither was a quick-and-easy choice. You have to have an adequate budget to make it feel less institutional so that clients can live there with dignity, security and comfort. A problem with conversion of existing office buildings is you're talking about change of use. The entire building must be brought up to all multi-family residential codes. In both cases, you must follow all state and local rules for housing and services for the homeless, he said.

The county chose the office building, which has a fascinating history.

Constructed as the Mobil exhibition pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair, the building was relocated from Queens to Oakley Street in the early 1980s, expanded and converted to offices. The vision for the emergency housing program there includes capacity for 99 beds, with supporting restrooms, showers, and a dining room with a warming kitchen, according to a new report from Tinkelman Architecture.

It is essential to keep such projects from looking institutional, Petruncola said. "You have to have the clients want to be there and it has to give them dignity," he said. "You’ve got to try to promote a sense of place."