Mayor Eric Adams’s administration must put into effect several laws to significantly expand New York City’s housing voucher program, a state appeals court ruled on Thursday, dealing a loss to Mr. Adams, who had opposed the measures over their potential cost.
The city spent more than $1 billion last year on the vouchers, which help tens of thousands of low-income New Yorkers pay rent and stay out of shelters. Through the program, tenants put about 30 percent of their income toward rent and the city covers the rest, making the vouchers a lifeline in one of the most expensive places to live in the nation.
But the vouchers also led to a feud between Mr. Adams and the City Council, which passed a package of bills in 2023 to expand the program.
The bills include one that removed a requirement that people spend time in shelters in order to be eligible for vouchers. Another made people eligible for vouchers if they had received written demands from their landlords for rent owed. A third raised the income level for voucher eligibility.
Mr. Adams vetoed the legislation, saying it would be too costly and would not actually address homelessness because there were not enough apartments to rent in the first place. The Council overrode his veto. Then, tenants sued last year to force the city to carry out the laws.
A lower court sided with Mr. Adams. But on Thursday, the appeals court overturned that ruling and said the administration must move forward with the voucher expansions. The first step is to get approval for the changes from a state agency, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.
Tenant advocates and the City Council applauded the court ruling on Thursday.
“It is unfortunate that for two years Mayor Adams’s administration stood in the way of removing barriers to housing vouchers” that keep New Yorkers in their homes and move them from shelters to permanent housing, said Rendy Desamours, a City Council spokesman.
A City Hall spokeswoman said that the administration was reviewing its options in light of the ruling.
“Adding more vouchers will only make it harder for people to leave homeless shelters,” said Liz Garcia, the spokeswoman. “The affordable-housing crisis won’t be solved by making people compete for nonexistent housing.”
The ruling comes as rents continue to climb, the share of apartments available to rent is at its lowest level in half a century and some 90,000 people stay in shelters every night.
The vouchers, known as CityFHEPS, are one crucial program the city relies on to deal with its affordable housing crisis. In the 2024 fiscal year, nearly 14,000 households leased apartments using the vouchers.
But it has grown expensive for the city, with the cost soaring from $25 million in the 2019 fiscal year to more than $1.1 billion in the most recent year, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit fiscal watchdog.
The ruling on Thursday comes as the city braces for cuts in federal funding. Already, moves by the Trump administration to cut food assistance could force the city to divert money away from rental assistance, city officials have warned.
And the Trump administration is proposing cuts to a federal voucher program known as Section 8, which might increase the demand for city vouchers among struggling New Yorkers.
Mihir Zaveri covers housing in the New York City region for The Times.
The post New York Must Move Forward With Housing Voucher Expansion, Court Rules appeared first on New York Times.
