The Mamdani administration reversed a core campaign promise Tuesday night, committing to continue an Adams-era court fight against the expansion of a city rental assistance program.
Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit
The Mamdani administration has committed to continuing City Hall’s court fight against a set of 2023 City Council laws passed to expand the city’s rental assistance program, reversing a campaign trail promise to drop the suit and allow the laws to come into effect.
In its filing late Tuesday to bring the case before the New York Court of Appeals — the state’s highest court — Mamdani’s Law Department has picked up the same legal argument used by ex-Mayor Eric Adams — that the council didn’t have the legal authority to expand the program, known as CityFHEPS.
The city’s Law Department is challenging an Appellate Division, First Department ruling last summer that sided with the council and advocate groups, like the Legal Aid Society, to uphold the assistance program. Legal Aid called the city’s appeal “regrettable” and its argument “unsound,” noting it had been rejected unanimously by the lower appellate court.
Mamdani’s administration has also said that the price tag for the program — estimated to cost about $10 billion over the next five years by the council — is too high for the city to afford. Thus, the new mayor said last month, he’d be walking back his campaign promise to drop the suit and would work with advocates and council to agree on a new bottom line for expanding CityFHEPS.
Mamdani spokesperson Joe Calvello said the city chose to take the matter to the Albany-based Court of Appeals instead because it hadn’t been able to reach an agreement with the council and advocate groups by the court-imposed March 25 deadline.
“We are committed to reaching a settlement that keeps New Yorkers stably housed and delivers a balanced budget,” Calvello said in a statement. “As the budget process advances, we will continue working toward a resolution while advancing a comprehensive, whole-of-government response to the city’s housing and homelessness crisis.”
Advocates said the about-face was a “shocking betrayal” and a “classic example” of “a promise made, a promise broken.”
“This is unconscionable,” Christine Quinn, president of Women in Need, an advocacy organization supporting the expansion, told amNewYork Law. “These bills are a clear roadmap to ending the homeless crisis in New York City. That’s why candidate Mamdani and Mayor-elect Mandani supported these laws and said he would drop the suit on day one.”
The program’s full expansion would have ended the requirement that a person needs to live in a city shelter for 90 days before having access to CityFHEPS vouchers, eliminated the program’s work requirement and shifted the income eligibility from 200% below the poverty line to 50% of the area’s median income. It would also have expanded voucher eligibility to all individuals at risk of eviction that met the other CityFHEPS requirements.
The City Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It overrode Adams’ vetoes of the bills in 2023 before filing suit in Manhattan Supreme Court to compel City Hall to enforce them.
Advocates and council members have pushed back against the claim the program is too expensive for years, arguing the cost of the program — which would keep people in their homes — is significantly lower than continuing to pay for people to stay in homeless shelters.
“Giving somebody a voucher is about $75 a night to live in their own home; to be in a homeless shelter for a night, it’s $300. To be in a welfare hotel with practically no services, is $400,” Quinn said. “It is clear that in the long run, these vouchers are cost-saving.”
While advocates initially pushed back on the idea of a settlement when Mamdani announced his intent to reach one, saying they wanted the laws to be fully implemented, some said they’d prefer a settlement to an appeal.
“They could make an agreement, saying ‘We’re gonna settle, and this is how much money we will be able to put in this year’s budget to be able to put vouchers out the door,’” Adolfo Abreu, the housing campaigns director at Vocal NY, told amNewYork Law. “It would have been able to help some people in the immediate.”
