Dozens of community advocates and local leaders gathered for a rally on the steps of City Hall Friday morning to call on the city to increase funding for the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
The group, which included Queens Council Member Nantasha Williams and representatives from the Fair Chance for Housing Coalition, the New York Human Rights Law Working Group, the Legal Aid Society, the Anti-Violence Project, and Make the Road New York, called on Mayor Eric Adams to add $6 million to CCHR’s fiscal year 2026 budget.
“Across the country, we’re witnessing a rollback of fundamental rights, from attacks on voting access and LGBTQ+ protections to the criminalization of protest and book bans targeting marginalized voices,” Williams, who is the chair of the Committee on Civil and Human Rights, said at the rally. Congress has failed to pass meaningful protections like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or comprehensive protections for transgender Americans. In this vacuum, cities like New York must step up to not only protect, but expand human rights infrastructure.”
A $6 million increase to the CCHR’s budget would bring its total annual budget to $21 million and exempt the commission from hiring freezes. According to advocates for the budget increase, New York’s primary barriers to human rights protections are not due to lacking systems or legislation, but lacking funds and city support. Council Members Shaun Abreu, Shahana Hanif, Sandy Nurse, Selvena Brooks-Powers, and Keith Powers have also backed the proposed budget increase.
Reggie Chatman, the Director of Public Policy at Fortune Society’s David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy, served as the rally’s emcee and called on the city to support the commission in its fight against discrimination in housing, employment, and “public accommodations of all types.”
CCHR is responsible for the enforcement of the city’s Human Rights Law — one of the most robust local human rights laws in the country — and Title 8 of NYC’s Administrative Code. Without proper funding, speakers at the rally said, the commission is ineffective.
“A city cannot call itself a sanctuary if it does not fund the mechanisms of protection,” Williams said. “CCHR must be equipped to meet this moment with the power to act swiftly, investigate thoroughly, and educate broadly.”
Robert Desir, a housing justice advocate with the Legal Aid Society, discussed the City Council’s December passage of the Fair Chance for Housing Act, which went into effect in January. The legislation seeks to eliminate housing discrimination against individuals with prior convictions.
“Passing the law is only the first step, what matters now is effective, well-resourced implementation,” Desir said. “Enforcement can’t wait.”
David Orkin, a workers’ rights attorney at the immigration advocacy organization Make The Road, spoke of the urgent need for human rights law enforcement given a growing trend of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detentions in NYC.
“New York City has one of the strongest human rights laws in the country. But without a well-funded Commission on Human Rights to enforce them, those laws are meaningless,” Orkin said.
Laura Horvath-Roa, a staff attorney with the Anti-Violence Project, called for the budget increase to support NYC’s LGBT community, particularly transgender and non-binary individuals, who are “not being supported by federal agencies.”
“The current administration has swiftly foreclosed many of the available avenues that advocates have to seek redress for discrimination against the LGBTQ community, leaving the New York City Commission of Human Rights as really the only meaningful forum for our clients to seek redress for discrimination,” Horvath-Roa said. “As the federal government abandons protections for the transgender community, CCHR has become a critical safeguard for LGBTQ New Yorkers.”
The State Division of Human Rights, Horvath-Roa said, is “notoriously slow” in addressing complaints, leaving the CCHR as a critical resource for New Yorkers.
After Horvath-Roa spoke, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget Jacques Jiha walked past the demonstration and into City Hall. The group chanted “fund CCHR!” as Jiha, the former Department of Finance Commissioner walked by.
Rebekah Cook-Mack from the Legal Aid Society said that though the proposed $6 million increase would be sizable for the CCHR, it’s only a small fraction of the city’s total budget, noting that the increase would total less than one percent of the city’s projected annual budget surplus.
“CCHR provides an essential service to New Yorkers and CCHR cannot protect New Yorkers without public investment,” Cook-Mack said. “But it can do a lot of good with very little money.”
