Mayor Eric Adams’ refusal to implement a set of laws meant to expand access to key rental assistance subsidies is putting some New Yorkers at risk of homelessness and threatening to strain the city’s jam-packed shelter system, tenants and their advocates say.
Four tenants on the brink of homelessness are attempting to join an ongoing class-action lawsuit filed against the mayor over the administration’s decision to block a measure that would allow people facing eviction to qualify for municipal housing vouchers. The housing voucher program’s expansion was approved by the City Council overruling Adams’ veto last year.
The mayor and the city’s Department of Social Services say it would cost the city billions of dollars to implement the law, which was part of a package of legislation that the Council passed last year. They also argue that the City Council doesn’t have the power to expand program eligibility.
DSS is already providing housing subsidies for roughly 70,000 households and spending $1.2 billion on homelessness prevention, including free attorneys in housing court, according to agency statistics. The data shows about 12,000 people with vouchers through the CityFHEPS program found permanent housing in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, while another 10,000 households in shelters also have the vouchers and are looking for apartments.
The agency declined to comment on the lawsuit and referred questions to the city’s Law Department.
Law Department spokesperson Nicholas Paolucci said state law gives the social services agency, not the City Council, authority to set CityFHEPS eligibility rules.
And City Hall spokesperson William Fowler defended the administration’s approach to homelessness prevention.
“The Adams administration has invested heavily in CityFHEPS — increasing funding, implementing reforms, and significantly expanding eligibility and access for the most at-risk New Yorkers,” he said in a statement.
But attorneys from the nonprofit Legal Aid Society, as well as city councilmembers, are disputing the administration’s stance and say the current efforts aren’t enough to keep low-income tenants in their homes if they can’t afford to pay their rent. They want the city to make low-income New Yorkers eligible for CityFHEPS vouchers before they become homeless, as the law passed last year states. The vouchers pay the majority of the rent on behalf of low-income New Yorkers who typically have to enter homeless shelters to qualify for the aid.
Legal Aid Society attorneys argue that median monthly rents and the city’s homeless shelter population both remain at record highs and that the laws passed by the Council are crucial for preventing more people from losing their apartments and entering shelters.
“There isn’t any way that they’re going to be able to continue to pay their rent and avoid eviction without a subsidy that the Council made them eligible for,” said staff attorney Robert Desir. “This is a really straightforward way to help people who are facing eviction. These are people who will end up in shelters.”
A judge will rule on whether the tenants can join the lawsuit, and stop their evictions, following a July 22 hearing.
The city is playing an outsized role in combating homelessness absent robust investments from the state and federal government.
State lawmakers declined to create a new rental subsidy program in the most recent budget approved in April. Meanwhile, the federal government is only issuing a fraction of the Section 8 housing vouchers needed to meet demand. When the city recently opened its Section 8 waitlist to new applicants for the first time in 15 years, more than 630,000 households applied in less than a week. But the city had just 19,000 available vouchers to issue.
That leaves CityFHEPS as the only realistic option for most households in need, said Councilmember Diana Ayala, who chairs the Council’s general welfare committee and represents parts of East Harlem and the South Bronx.
“There’s no other supplemental program to provide that level of aid,” she said. “That’s why the Council passed the law.”
For the past year, Mayor Adams has criticized the expansion legislation, which was supposed to take effect in January. He cited a $17 billion price tag put forward by his budget office, though the Council has accused the administration of inflating the cost.
The Legal Aid Society sued the city for refusing to implement the laws in February.
The four tenants who are attempting to join the lawsuit face a serious bind. Each of them has serious medical problems or care for a family member with a disability. All of them owe back rent totaling more than $20,000. They have fixed incomes and say they have no way to make up the money or pay rent going forward without government aid, but they can’t access that assistance without first entering a homeless shelter.
Judges in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens have already ordered their evictions, but Legal Aid is seeking a stay while the lawsuit against the city moves forward. If the nonprofit’s lawsuit is successful in compelling the Adams administration to enact the City Council’s law, the tenants would be eligible for rental assistance vouchers through the CityFHEPS program.
Otherwise, the renters whom Gothamist spoke with say they’ll have to enter the shelter system if city marshals remove them from their homes.
“I’m scared,” said Arnaldo Fernandez, a tenant in Bayside, Queens, who lost his job as a truck driver when he developed glaucoma in 2019 and now can’t afford rent.
“I never thought of being in a shelter in my life,” he added. “I see the people in shelters and I feel bad that they’re there. And it’s my turn now to be in a shelter.”
Fernandez, who is 65 and lives with his wife and two older children, is considered legally blind and owes the landlord more than $53,000 in rent. The landlord, which is a corporation with properties throughout Queens, and its attorney did not respond to calls seeking comment.
A tenant living in Brooklyn and another in Queens’ LeFrak City housing complex are in similar predicaments. A judge ordered each of them evicted earlier this year.
The Brooklyn landlord testified in court that he needs the money to keep up with building expenses. He and his attorney did not respond to calls seeking comment.
Earlier this month, a Queens judge ruled that he did not have the ability to force the city to grant a tenant a CityFHEPS voucher and ordered her eviction in August if she can’t come up with the missing rent. The landlord’s attorney did not respond to a call seeking comment.
The fourth tenant, Cheryl Thompson, lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in the Bronx and serves as the primary caretaker for her disabled sister, according to documents filed in the lawsuit. She and her family owe about $44,000 in back rent, court records show.
“Homelessness is not something I like to talk about, you don’t want to end up that way,” Thompson said. “It’s very depressing to see people sitting on the sidewalk, no home to go to. I don’t want to end up that way.”
The landlord’s attorney, Christine Panza, said Thompson and her family could stay put if they can come up with the cash.
“They’re not trying to kick her out,” said Panza. “They’re trying to get paid.”
Robert Ehrlich, a landlord attorney who serves on the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, said property owners in most cases just want to get paid the rent and would cancel evictions if the city intervenes with a housing voucher and back rent.
“If the tenant pays, the tenant stays,” he said.
But Alexandra MacDougall, another Legal Aid lawyer representing the tenants, said they have been denied emergency assistance to cover their back rent through the city’s “one-shot deal” program because they can’t prove their ability to make future rent payments without a housing subsidy. In a stark contrast with previous years, the city’s social services agency has been denying the majority of one-shot deal applications, Gothamist previously reported.
“This whole case is really just about getting people access to this benefit to which they’re entitled,” MacDougall said.
Keeping the tenants housed and out of the shelter system would actually save the city tens of thousands of dollars in shelter expenses, she said. And the tenants are unlikely to find another apartment at comparable rents, MacDougall added. The four tenants on the lawsuit all have monthly rents of less than $2,000.
“The chance that these households will find apartments in the ballpark of those rents again is next to zero,” she said.