REPORT TO THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

Committee on Veterans (2026)

Part 1 — Executive Summary and Introduction

Executive Summary

The Borden Report 2026 examines the operation, administration, safety, financial accountability, and government oversight of the Borden Avenue Veterans’ Residence (BAVR), 21-10 Borden Avenue, Long Island City, New York, and its role within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Grant and Per Diem (GPD) Program.

Borden Avenue occupies an unusual position within New York City's homeless-services system. The New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) serves as the governmental entity responsible for the shelter structure, while the Institute for Community Living (ICL) operates the facility under City contract and veterans are served through the federally funded VA GPD program. VA award information reviewed for this report identifies 154 GPD beds at Borden Avenue, classified as Service Intensive beds rather than Clinical Treatment beds.

This distinction is important. GPD is fundamentally a transitional program for eligible veterans experiencing homelessness. Although behavioral-health treatment may be appropriate and necessary for individual veterans, the GPD population is not limited to veterans with mental-health or substance-use disorders. Veterans may require transitional assistance because of eviction, unemployment, financial hardship, release from incarceration, hospitalization, family disruption, military separation, disability, or other circumstances that result in homelessness.

Accordingly, this report evaluates Borden Avenue not simply as a shelter, but according to whether it provides an environment capable of helping veterans stabilize, remain connected to VA resources, develop independent-living capacity, and transition successfully into permanent housing.

Safety and the Residential Environment

Public safety is among the report's principal concerns.

An analysis of emergency-response records identified approximately 1,365 emergency calls associated with 21-10 Borden Avenue from August 2024 through December 2025. The records include calls categorized as medical emergencies, assaults, disputes, emotionally disturbed persons, injuries, unconscious persons, suspected overdoses, and other emergencies. Separate arrest records reviewed for the report identified approximately 72 arrests associated with the address between September 2022 and late 2025.

These figures require careful interpretation. An emergency call establishes that assistance was requested or an incident was recorded; it does not independently establish what ultimately occurred. Similarly, an arrest represents law-enforcement action and does not establish guilt. Neither dataset, standing alone, proves misconduct by ICL or DHS.

The volume and nature of the activity nevertheless provide a substantial basis for examining whether Borden Avenue offers an appropriate transitional environment for veterans attempting to recover from homelessness.

The report therefore recommends that emergency-response and provider incident records be reconciled with VA GPD major-incident records. The purpose is to determine whether qualifying deaths, overdoses, serious assaults, injuries, hospitalizations, and other major incidents were properly communicated to appropriate VA GPD personnel and whether documented review, corrective action, and follow-up occurred.

Until that reconciliation is completed, this report does not characterize a failure to report major incidents as an established fact.

GPD and the Modified Therapeutic Community Model

A second major concern involves the relationship between Borden Avenue's behavioral-health orientation and its federal GPD mission.

The Modified Therapeutic Community (MTC) was developed for individuals with co-occurring mental-health and substance-use disorders. Published MTC literature describes a structured treatment environment emphasizing community participation, peer influence, personal responsibility, progressive treatment, and behavioral change, while modifying the traditional therapeutic-community model through greater flexibility, reduced intensity, less confrontation, fewer sanctions, and greater accommodation of individual psychiatric and cognitive needs.

The GPD program serves a substantially broader population.

This distinction becomes particularly significant because the VA award information reviewed for Borden Avenue identifies its 154 authorized beds as Service Intensive rather than Clinical Treatment beds.

The report therefore does not conclude that the MTC model itself violates GPD requirements. Instead, it examines whether application of a behavioral-health treatment model developed for people with co-occurring disorders is appropriate within a large Service Intensive GPD program, particularly for veterans whose principal needs are transitional housing, employment, benefits, healthcare coordination, and permanent-housing assistance.

Behavioral-health treatment should be available to veterans who need it. Homelessness itself, however, should not be treated as evidence that every veteran requires the same clinical or therapeutic model.

Veteran Referrals and Continued Connection to the VA

Updated information reviewed for this report also raises concerns about what happens when VA-eligible veterans enter New York City's general homeless-services system.

Reports and records reviewed raise concerns that some veterans may be referred or transferred to non-veteran shelters rather than remaining within GPD or being connected to another appropriate veteran-specific resource. The report therefore recommends examination of transfers from Borden Avenue and referrals involving Tillary and other general shelters.

The purpose is not to suggest that every placement in a non-veteran shelter is inappropriate. Such placements may sometimes be necessary, appropriate, or preferred by the veteran. Rather, the review should determine whether VA eligibility was identified, whether appropriate VA programs were considered, whether VA personnel participated where required, and why a non-veteran placement was selected.

A related concern involves referrals to New York City and nonprofit programs instead of or without appropriate connection to available VA services.

Community organizations can provide essential assistance and should remain important partners. The issue is not whether veterans should use non-VA programs. It is whether veterans participating in a federally funded GPD program are systematically assessed for the VA resources available to them—including healthcare, benefits, HUD-VASH, employment and rehabilitation services, homeless-veteran programs, and other appropriate federal assistance.

Non-VA resources should supplement those services when beneficial or reflect the veteran's informed preference rather than unnecessarily displace resources specifically established for eligible veterans.

Nutrition, Kitchen Operations, and Independent Living

The report also examines nutrition and the use of Borden Avenue's kitchen.

Materials reviewed indicate that the kitchen has been used in connection with a Project Renewal culinary program, while resident veterans have received meals through separate food-service arrangements. Supporting reports also describe circumstances in which donated food could not be prepared for veterans because the kitchen or cooking resources were unavailable for that purpose.

The precise contractual and operational arrangements governing the kitchen should be independently verified. The available evidence nevertheless supports review of whether a major facility resource located within a veterans transitional residence is being used in a manner that primarily advances the needs of the resident veteran population.

Nutrition is only part of the issue. Cooking, meal planning, food safety, budgeting, and food preparation are practical independent-living skills. A culinary program could itself advance the GPD mission if veterans were meaningfully incorporated into it.

Financial and Contractor Accountability

The Borden Report also examines the relationship between substantial public expenditures and measurable services delivered to veterans.

ICL is a large nonprofit organization with significant financial resources, while Borden Avenue operates through a multimillion-dollar public budget. The report evaluates expenditures for security, food, transportation, staffing, housing assistance, and other services against the program's transitional objectives.

This analysis is informed by broader government oversight findings. The New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) identified systemic vulnerabilities within the City's nonprofit shelter-contracting system involving procurement, conflicts of interest, executive compensation, nepotism, financial controls, and contractor monitoring. These findings should not be interpreted as establishing that ICL engaged in each practice identified by DOI. Their relevance is that they demonstrate why strong financial and contractual oversight is necessary within the shelter system.

Federal oversight raises a separate concern. A VA Office of Inspector General review identified significant weaknesses in the reliability of GPD outcome reporting, including unsupported permanent-housing classifications and negative exits that were not properly recorded. Those national findings do not establish that Borden Avenue's housing records are inaccurate. They support independent verification of Borden Avenue's reported outcomes.

Women Veterans and Equal Access

Borden Avenue's role as New York City's principal GPD facility also raises an important issue concerning women veterans and other veterans who cannot appropriately be accommodated within its existing structure.

The federal GPD mission is not inherently male-only. The report therefore examines whether women veterans and veterans with families have meaningful access to comparable veteran-specific transitional resources or whether they are instead routed into the general municipal shelter system.

Equal access requires more than theoretical eligibility. It requires an actual placement capable of safely serving the veteran.

The report recommends development of veteran-centered transitional capacity capable of serving a broader veteran population, with appropriate privacy and separation where necessary.

Introduction

Purpose of the Borden Report

The Borden Report 2026 was developed to provide the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General and other appropriate federal and municipal oversight authorities with a comprehensive examination of New York City's GPD transitional program at Borden Avenue.

The report evaluates four fundamental areas:

• whether veterans are being provided a safe and appropriate transitional environment;
• whether GPD services and program operations remain consistent with the federal transitional mission;
• whether public expenditures and contractor activities produce measurable services and successful veteran outcomes; and
• whether VA, City agencies, contractors, advisory bodies, and legislative oversight organizations are effectively identifying and correcting deficiencies.

The report combines federal regulations and VA guidance with municipal records, financial documents, FOIL data, government oversight reports, meeting records, testimony, provider materials, published research, and firsthand veteran accounts.

Where possible, independent records are used to verify reported conditions. Where the evidence remains incomplete, the report identifies the issue as requiring investigation rather than presenting an allegation as an established finding.

Transitional Housing Is More Than Shelter

A central distinction runs throughout the report: sheltering a veteran is not the same as transitioning a veteran out of homelessness.

Emergency shelter addresses an immediate need for a place to stay. Transitional programming should address what happens next.

A veteran preparing for permanent housing may require identification documents, income, employment, benefits, healthcare, transportation, financial preparation, housing navigation, HUD-VASH coordination, independent-living skills, and sustained case management. The specific combination varies according to the individual veteran.

The success of GPD should therefore be evaluated not merely through occupancy or the number of shelter nights provided, but through measurable transition outcomes: permanent-housing placement, housing stability, employment and income where appropriate, VA engagement, independent-living preparation, and successful reintegration into the community.

Multiple Systems, Shared Responsibility

Borden Avenue operates at the intersection of multiple institutions.

The VA establishes and funds the federal GPD framework. DHS operates New York City's shelter system and administers the City's contractual relationship with the provider. ICL operates Borden Avenue. DVS has an advocacy and coordination role for New York City's veterans. The NYC Continuum of Care Veterans Task Force, Veterans Advisory Board, City Council Committee on Veterans, NYC DOI, VA OIG, and other entities provide additional forms of coordination or oversight.

This structure can provide multiple safeguards. It can also create fragmented responsibility.

A safety incident may be treated as a shelter matter by one agency, a provider matter by another, and a federal concern only if information reaches VA personnel. A housing delay can involve DHS, ICL, VA, HUD-VASH, housing agencies, or outside providers. Veterans themselves are then left to navigate the boundaries between systems.

Effective oversight therefore requires following the veteran's complete path through the program, rather than evaluating each agency in isolation.

Veterans With Lived Experience

The report also emphasizes the importance of Veterans With Lived Experience.

Administrative records can identify admissions, services, expenditures, incidents, and exits. They cannot fully describe what it is like to live inside a transitional program, attempt to sleep in a congregate environment, obtain transportation to a VA appointment, navigate a housing placement, file a grievance, obtain nutritious meals, or maintain stability while serious incidents occur nearby.

Veteran accounts are therefore an important source of oversight information. They are not automatically treated as independent proof of every allegation. Instead, lived experience identifies issues that can be compared with contracts, budgets, emergency records, incident reports, housing data, meeting records, and other documentation.

Borden Avenue's Suitability

The cumulative evidence examined in this report raises a broader policy issue beyond correcting individual deficiencies: whether Borden Avenue remains an appropriate location and environment for New York City's VA GPD population.

The report ultimately recommends that VA and New York City evaluate relocation of the GPD program to a safer, purpose-designed veteran transitional facility closer to the Manhattan VA.



This is a recommendation, not a finding that federal law requires relocation.

A location closer to the Manhattan VA could potentially improve access to healthcare, homeless-veteran services, benefits assistance, HUD-VASH coordination, behavioral-health services when needed, employment assistance, and other veteran-specific resources while reducing dependence upon transportation from Long Island City.

The Bellevue area is identified as one location warranting feasibility analysis because of its proximity to Manhattan VA services and transportation. Any relocation would require independent review of capacity, safety, accessibility, costs, federal requirements, and the needs of men, women, and other GPD-eligible veterans.

Scope and Objective

The remaining Parts of the Borden Report examine veteran eligibility and transition from homelessness; women veterans and equal access; vulnerable veterans; VA responsibility; protection against exploitation; program outcomes; Borden Avenue operations; emergency and arrest data; ICL finances; the MTC and GPD models; DHS contracting; DVS advocacy; the Veterans Task Force; Veterans Advisory Board; City Council oversight; government investigations; and final findings and recommendations.

Each Part is intended to function as a standalone report with its own Sources section, while collectively contributing to the broader assessment of Borden Avenue and New York City's GPD system.

The purpose is not to presume misconduct. It is to determine where the documentary record supports findings, where reported concerns require independent verification, and where corrective action may be necessary.

Ultimately, the standard for evaluating Borden Avenue should remain centered on the veteran.

VA-eligible veterans experiencing homelessness should enter an environment that increases their stability rather than their vulnerability; connects them to the federal benefits and services earned through military service; protects their dignity and safety; prepares them for independent living; and moves them toward verified, sustainable permanent housing.

That is the standard against which the Borden Report 2026 evaluates the program.