A single mom facing eviction from her $1,254-a-month Bronx apartment is still fighting for rental assistance after a state judge sided with Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to block new measures expanding housing voucher access.
Carolina Tejeda, 43, was one of four lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit attempting to force Adams and the city’s social services agency to implement sweeping rental assistance legislation passed by the City Council last year despite the mayor’s objections. The measures would have allowed low-income New Yorkers at-risk of eviction — like Tejeda and her 12-year-old daughter — to qualify for a rental assistance program known as CityFHEPS without first entering a homeless shelter.
But Adams and the city’s Department of Social Services said expanding the voucher program would be too expensive, and argued the Council didn’t have the authority to enact such laws. A judge sided with Adams last month, severing a potential lifeline for thousands of New Yorkers who are at risk of eviction, with few options for cheaper apartments amid a severe affordable housing shortage.
Tejeda and attorneys from the Legal Aid Society are appealing the Manhattan Supreme Court judge’s ruling to a higher court as she tries to remain in her apartment.
Tejeda says she has chronic pain in her hips, hands and head following a serious car crash that left her unable to work. She receives a monthly disability check of about $1,200 — less than her rent — and said she and her daughter would become homeless if they can’t get a housing voucher.
“I only need help to pay my part of the rent and protect the place for my daughter and me,” Tejeda told Gothamist. “Especially for my daughter, because she is too little to see people come and take things away from my apartment.”
The city’s Department of Social Services and Law Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. City officials previously defended the administration’s efforts to prevent residents from becoming homeless by increasing funding to the CityFHEPS program and an initiative that provides free attorneys to low-income tenants in housing court.
City statistics show roughly 11,000 households in homeless shelters currently have CityFHEPS vouchers and are looking for housing, while about 40,000 households across the five boroughs use CityFHEPS to help pay rent. Tenants who receive the assistance typically pay 30% of their income toward rent, while the program covers the remainder.
Low-income renters face various obstacles to finding affordable apartments.
The number of vacant units in the five boroughs dropped to a five-decade low last year, according to the city’s most recent housing survey. In 2023, less than 1% of apartments priced below $2,400 a month were available to rent.
For low- and middle-income families, affordable housing is even more elusive. The vast majority of city-subsidized units are studios or one-bedroom apartments that largely lock out families.
Tejeda’s lawyers say she’s not alone in her struggle, and that an enormous number of low-income New Yorkers face a similar bind: They cannot afford their current rents without aid and cannot find cheaper apartments in the five boroughs, but often cannot access ongoing assistance unless they enter a homeless shelter first.
“There is no way that she is going to find another apartment in the city in the current market for that rent,” said Gillian Stoddard Leatherberry, who works for the nonprofit legal group Bronx Defenders and is representing Tejeda in her housing court case. “It will cost the city more to have her go into shelter than it would to help her pay her rent.”
Stoddard Leatherberry said Tejeda’s situation also reflects the various hurdles to housing assistance for many New Yorkers in need.
Tejeda used to qualify for a state rental voucher program available to some low-income families with children, but she lost the assistance because her modest disability payments raised her income above the program’s eligibility limit, according to court records.
She applied for a Section 8 housing voucher, but just a fraction of qualifying households actually receive a spot in the federal program. The city opened the Section 8 waiting list for the first time in 15 years earlier this summer, receiving more than 600,000 applications for a coveted spot.
Tejeda said she tried applying for an emergency assistance loan from the city, known as a One-Shot Deal, but was denied because she can’t assure that she will be able to pay her monthly rent in the future without a housing voucher.
Tejeda’s landlord filed a nonpayment case against her in housing court last October after she failed to make her full monthly payments and her back rent reached about $3,900, court records show.
The landlord’s attorney, Chad Karp, declined to comment on the lawsuit against the city or the nonpayment case. But Karp said generally speaking, tenants who pay off their “arrears fully and timely” satisfy the landlord’s claims.
His law partner Robert Ehrlich put it more succinctly in July: “If the tenant pays, the tenant stays,” Ehrlich told Gothamist.
The class-action lawsuit attempting to force the city to expand CityFHEPS eligibility dates back to February, when Legal Aid first filed the legal challenge on behalf of four lead plaintiffs.
The city subsequently issued rental assistance to three of the plaintiffs, said Legal Aid attorney Alex MacDougall, who is representing Tejeda in the lawsuit against the city. One woman had an old case restored, while two others got assistance after the city’s Adult Protective Services agreed to take up their cases, she said.
But Tejeda is out of options.
“There’s really nothing else out there for her,” said Legal Aid attorney Alex MacDougall, who is representing Tejeda in the lawsuit against the city. “She’s extremely disabled. Her daughter is 12. There’s no one in the household who is going to get employment income.”