Housing advocates and City Council members rallied Thursday in front of City Hall to once again demand that Mayor Zohran Mamdani fulfill a campaign promise to follow through with the expansion of a critical, but costly, housing voucher program.
The City Council approved several laws expanding the number of New Yorkers eligible for the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) in 2023, overriding then-Mayor Eric Adams’ veto — but the new rules have been held up in court battles initiated first by the Adams’ administration and continued by the Mamdani City Hall, despite campaign promises to the contrary.
At the center of the debate is cost. Advocates maintain that funding permanent housing for New Yorkers living in shelters or facing eviction will result in budgetary savings, but the administration has postponed implementing the expansion, saying that the vital housing voucher system needs reforms to minimize the immediate ballooning costs in favor of program longevity.
Council Member Pierina Sanchez (D-Bronx), who chairs the council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings, told protesters that 25,000 evictions could have been avoided had the CityFHEPS expansion laws been enforced…