Mayor Zohran Mamdani is scaling again his marketing campaign guarantees to assist tenants and homeless New Yorkers by failing to develop the CityFHEPS program, tenant and shelter advocates mentioned throughout a rally at Metropolis Corridor on Tuesday.
Funding for CityFHEPS (Metropolis Combating Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Complement), a rental help program, was rolled again to $1.64 billion within the mayor’s preliminary finances final month, which advocates mentioned is “far less” than required for expansions codified by the NYC Council in 2023.
CityFHEPS has come beneath hearth previously 12 months for main value overruns because it was first launched in 2019 throughout the de Blasio Administration; a Residents Finances Fee evaluation performed final 12 months discovered that metropolis spending on this system had grown 44 instances over six years, from an preliminary $25 million dedication to $1.1 billion within the 2025 fiscal 12 months.
At Tuesday’s rally, dozens of advocates expressed critical concern with the mayor’s transfer to scale back CityFHEPS funding in his preliminary finances, in addition to his willingness to drop any authorized battles in opposition to this system — regardless of saying in any other case on the marketing campaign path. The lawsuit, a years-long, back-and-forth dispute between the Mayor’s workplace beneath Eric Adams and the Metropolis Council, joined by housing advocates, has been over whether or not and the way this system must be expanded.
“We rallied because people in our coalition feel very disappointed and frustrated at Mayor Mamdani walking back on his campaign promise on expanding CityFHEPS,” mentioned Adolfo Abreu, housing campaigns director of VOCAL-NY. “When he was running as a candidate, he agreed to dropping the lawsuit and fully expanding CityFHEPS.”
Issues are arising over Mayor Mamdani’s finances.Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Abreu mentioned many New Yorkers felt let down by the mayor’s latest actions.
“I think a lot of us in our communities felt betrayed by the mayor,” he mentioned. “There are a lot of campaign promises that the mayor has walked back on. Particularly the first two campaign promises that he made that he’s betrayed homeless New Yorkers on are the expansion of CityFHEPS and reinstituting encampment sweeps.”
Different advocacy teams at Tuesday’s rally included the Coalition for the Homeless, Housing Works and WIN.
NYC can’t ‘voucher its way’ out of the homeless disaster
CityFHEPS, launched in 2018, is the most important publicly funded rental subsidy within the nation. Officers have described it as a “vital tool” to finish homelessness and promote housing stability for New Yorkers. Based on the town’s Division of Social Companies, this system has processed 57,888 new circumstances, serving to 123,762 people to safe everlasting housing since its inception by means of March 2025.
However NYC has tripled its spending on serving to the homeless, regardless of extra New Yorkers residing on the streets. This system’s bills have elevated dramatically by means of the COVID-19 pandemic years and past. Final 12 months, its projected prices had been $1.2 billion, in line with a state comptroller’s report from January.
One other state report from this month reveals the variety of homeless folks in New York elevated from 3,588 in 2019 to over 4,500 final 12 months.
Nonetheless, advocates preserve that increasing the voucher program will assist alleviate the homelessness disaster — but it surely requires enough funding from Metropolis Corridor.
Christine Quinn, president and CEO of WIN and a former NYC Metropolis Council speaker, mentioned Mamdani’s present dedication to CityFHEPS just isn’t sufficient rental help throughout a housing and affordability disaster.
“Mayor Mamdani’s preliminary budget is clear: he intends to walk away from his promise to implement codified CityFHEPS expansions over the objections of the City Council, advocates, and countless New Yorkers,” she mentioned. “While committing $1.64 billion for CityFHEPS is appropriate and appreciated for current levels of implementation, this figure fails to cover critical CityFHEPS expansions during the worst affordability crisis in modern history.”
Nonetheless, different New Yorkers aren’t as satisfied that CityFHEPS must develop.
Regardless of this system including over 40,000 vouchers within the final 5 years, the variety of households in shelters has not fallen, representatives from the Residents Finances Fee (CBC), a spending watchdog group, mentioned. In truth, it’s now 21.5% increased than fiscal 12 months 2021, excluding migrants and asylum seekers, they defined.
“To cut to the chase, capping the CityFHEPS program at the current number of vouchers would save $330 million in fiscal year 2027 budget and $3.0 billion over the five-year financial plan, without taking away vouchers from current recipients,” Ana Champeny, vp for analysis on the CBC, mentioned throughout a NYC Council testimony on Tuesday.
She added that the prices to fund the voucher program tripled within the final three years, much like the findings within the state comptroller’s report.
“The city cannot voucher its way out of the homelessness crisis, and it isn’t. Not only is the program fiscally unsustainable, but even as the number of city-funded vouchers has more than tripled, the number of households in shelters hasn’t shrunken—in fact, excluding migrants and asylum seekers, it has increased by 21.5%.”
Within the meantime, Abreu acknowledged the issues surrounding CityFHEPS and doesn’t need the town to need to depend on rental help to maintain New Yorkers housed. However total, he mentioned, this system works.
“I think there is a world in which we are able to expand,” he mentioned. “There are people who have concerns about the costs of the program, that it’s growing and unsustainable, but the program has worked. Households in NYC have found housing and remained housed because of CityFHEPS.”
