NYC’s largest housing voucher program expands, but lawmakers say it’s not enough

As New York City grapples with the ongoing housing crisis, CityFHEPS, a city-funded voucher program for low-income households, has played an increasingly prominent role in securing housing for some of the poorest residents in the city. But the program, which has grown astronomically since its inception in 2018, is locked in legal turmoil amid a years-long battle to expand it.

CityFHEPS started out under the de Blasio Administration in 2019 as a consolidated version of several city-funded rental subsidy programs designed to reduce the population of homeless shelters across the city by ensuring that low-income households pay no more than 30% of their income on rent.

Underlining the scale of the city’s housing crisis, the program has grown from a budget of just $25 million in its inaugural year to a staggering $1.25 billion in 2025, covering more than 55,000 households.

The program’s expansion has helped to ease the burden on the massively over-subscribed Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, which also ensures that low-income households pay no more than 30% of their income on rent. According to 2024 data, nearly 123,000 households in New York City rely on federally funded housing vouchers, which remain in high demand, with waitlists stretching for years.

With Section 8 straining under increased demand, CityFHEPS has proved a vital resource for the city’s low-income families who come nowhere close to affording market-rate apartments and are largely locked out of the city’s housing lottery, which bases “affordable” rates off an Area Median Income (AMI) that does not reflect the true citywide median.

CityFHEPS, like the Section 8 program, is therefore one of the only options available to low-income New Yorkers seeking accommodation in the city.

However, critics say the program has an inherent flaw – one that has been the subject of a two-year legal dispute between City Hall and City Council. CityFHEPS is primarily only available to households who are in homeless shelters, meaning that a rent-burdened household must lose their home and enter the shelter system if they are to qualify for a city-funded housing voucher.

The City Council voted in 2023 to expand the program to rent-burdened New Yorkers before they enter the shelter system, but the move was met with pushback from the Adams Administration, who vetoed the council vote, stating that the costs to expand CityFHEPS were too great. The council then overrode that veto, forcing the administration to expand it– which Adams defied citing cost. The council then filed a lawsuit.

Estimates for the cost of the expansion vary greatly, with the Council’s fiscal impact statement estimating that the expansion would cost $10.6 billion over a five-year period. City Hall, meanwhile, estimates that the expansion would cost the city $17.2 billion over five years.

The New York County Supreme Court ruled in Adams’ favor last August when it moved that state law prohibits the City Council from having policymaking authority over social services. The City Council and non-profit the Legal Aid Society are appealing the ruling.

Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala. William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit

Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala, chair of the Council’s Committee on General Welfare who represents the 8th Council District in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx, said she was disappointed by the Adams administration’s efforts to block the expansion of the program, noting that it costs the city more to house individuals in homeless shelters than it does to keep them in their existing apartment via a housing voucher.

“If a person has an apartment and they would qualify anyway… why not just keep them in their apartment and allow them to apply?” Ayala said.

Ayala also blasted City Hall over a recent decision to introduce a requirement mandating that households who have been on the program for five years pay 40% of their income on rent instead of 30%. The requirement would only apply to households who have an earned income, City Hall officials said.

Ayala, however, noted that the vouchers apply to a household’s pre-tax income—rather than its net income—and said low-income households still struggle to cover expenses, even when receiving CityFHEPS vouchers. Ayala recalled receiving Section 8 vouchers in the 1990s and said almost half of her net income went toward rent.

“When I had Section 8, that meant that my entire second check of the month went towards the rent for the following month,” Ayala said. “Now we have a completely different situation, where we have higher rates of utilities, higher rates of food, expenses for children.”

Ayala said the city’s decision to raise the rent burden to 40% will also make it more difficult for families to save money and become self-sufficient.

Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez, chair of the Council’s Committee on Housing who represents a portion of the West Bronx in Council District 14, similarly lambasted the Mayor’s office, describing the Adams Administration as a “paradox” that touts affordable housing preservation and construction goals while not doing the “one thing” that can help local communities the most.

Sanchez said CityFHEPS’ current eligibility requirements dictate that the “only place” where a rent-burdened household can get the help they need is after they enter the shelter system.

Sanchez added that an eviction not only removes a family from their home, but disconnects them from vital amenities.

“There’s a lot of research that shows that a family that suffers through an eviction gets disconnected from their neighborhood doctors, their neighborhood schools, their community, their social network,” Sanchez said. “That has real impacts on that family and their ability to keep progressing and be stable.

Robert Desir, staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, said it would be a “much more desirable outcome” if people were able to stay in their apartment. He said households who would otherwise qualify for the program are currently paying rents below $1,500 and said the city would save substantial money by offering vouchers to households before they enter the shelter system.

Desir said households are unlikely to find such cheap rents again if they are evicted and forced to find new accommodation using CityFHEPS vouchers. He also noted that it’s disruptive.

“People who have been in their communities for a very long time are being removed from their community…which can be problematic for families that have children that go to school,” Desir said.

The Mayor’s office pushed back strongly against criticism, pointing to the massive expansion of the program since he took office in 2022. City Hall officials noted that the program has grown from a budget of $253 million in FY21 to a projected budget of $1.25 billion for FY25.

Officials further stated that it is “factually inaccurate” to state that the Mayor’s office is reluctant to expand CityFHEPS given that the program’s budget is now five times larger than when Adams took office.

They further contended that reducing the level of city support for households who have been CityFHEPS recipients for five years or more means that the city can direct resources to those who need them the most. They noted that CityFHEPS is not intended to be a permanent measure and aims to set households on the path to self-sufficiency, describing the eventual reduction of city assistance as a “common sense” approach.

Sanchez, however, said the measure will only save the city around $25 million per year and called on City Hall to “find the savings somewhere else.” She said increasing the rent burden for low-income New Yorkers will make it even harder for households to save money and leave them with less disposable than before.

“We’re going to save $25 million a year by screwing up lives for our lowest income New Yorkers who are trying to make ends meet, trying to work and trying to keep their families afloat,” Sanchez said.

Ayala, meanwhile, said the measure will ensure that CityFHEPS is a “revolving door to poverty” with no way out for voucher holders.

Rachel Fee, executive director of affordable housing non-profit the Housing Conference, said the measure of increasing the rent burden to 40% would place a “huge burden” on low-income New Yorkers by taking away money that’s needed for necessities such as food and childcare.

City Hall said it was unfair that the Adams Administration was being subject to criticism from housing groups given the exponential expansion of the CityFHEPS program. They said advocates should focus their efforts on demanding that the state and federal government “step up” their housing voucher programs.

New Yorkers rallied on Oct. 1, 2024, as the City Council and Legal Aid Society appealed a court ruling blocking efforts to force City Hall to expand CityFHEPS housing voucher eligibility, as required under a City Council law that went into effect at the beginning of 2024. Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit

The New York State legislature included a $50 million housing voucher pilot program in the recently-approved state budget, effectively replacing the state’s $65 million Advantage housing voucher program axed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2011 when he sought to balance the state budget.

The State’s Housing Voucher Access Program, which takes effect in March 2026, will provide state-funded vouchers for homeless families or families at imminent risk of losing their housing. Vouchers will be available to households making up to 50 percent of AMI.

State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, representing parts of Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, said the program will “really help” families at risk of homelessness by helping them get direct state-funded support for stable housing.

However, City Hall officials expressed frustration that the state is receiving praise for the new pilot program, while the Mayor’s office takes criticism for overseeing a program that dwarfs the new state voucher program. Assembly Member Claire Valdez, representing Western Queens, has said that the state’s new voucher program “does not go far enough.”

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has proposed major cuts to the Section 8 voucher program at the federal level, proposing a move that would tie Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing aid, and assistance to the elderly and disabled into a single grant and cutting the total by $27 billion nationwide.

Fee said that Trump’s proposed cuts would further erode the federal safety net, with “catastrophic” consequences for New York City. It would require the city and state to help cover the shortfall.

The Citizens Budget Committee, a nonpartisan nonprofit that examines city and state public policy, however, is not even confident that the city can even afford the CityFHEPS expansions that the Council is pushing for.

The group put out a report in February on CityFHEPS, and noted that people “don’t appreciate” how big the program has grown and how the city can’t “voucher its way out of the crisis.” The report further stated that CityFHEPS’ current growth is “unsustainable,” pointing out that the program has not reduced demand for shelter space or addressed rising rents in the city.

Yvonne Peña, public benefits and housing policy analyst with Community Service Society, a non-profit fighting for more equitable access to affordable housing, said the growth and demand of the program speaks to the extent of the housing crisis.

“We are seeing that more people need housing and need support financially to stay and to remain stably housed,” Peña said. “The numbers don’t lie.”

Sanchez, meanwhile, “took exception” to the notion that the Council is trying to “voucher its way out” of the housing crisis, stating that the Council has been “doing a lot of different things” to combat the crisis, in addition to expanding the CityFHEPS program.

Sean Campion, CBC’s Director of Housing and Economic Development Studies, said the expansion would essentially double the current scale of the program and questioned whether the city has the means to cover the cost of the expansion.

“The city budget is in a pretty precarious place before you can start looking at the federal cuts,” Campion said.

He stressed that CityFHEPS must be part of a multi-pronged solution to the housing crisis.

Campion also noted that the city is not just facing the impact of cuts to Section 8 but also facing cuts to Medicaid, SNAP food assistance and a whole host of other “downstream effects” that the Trump Administration’s proposals may cause.

“In the event that these things do come to pass, you know, they’re going to have to make choices about, what,” Campion said.

However, Campion tempered some of the fear surrounding Trump’s proposed cuts by noting that the Section 8 program has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress and that the program was not cut during Trump’s first term in office.

“I think there’s some general faith that what was proposed in that budget may not come to pass,” Campion said.

That said, even if the Section 8 program survives Trump’s attempted funding cuts, questions over CityFHEPS and the role it will play in abating the housing crisis will remain.

CityFHEPS can provide a solution to the city’s housing crisis, but both those in favor and opposed to its expansion agree that it can not be the only solution.

Gonzalez, for example, said housing vouchers are only “one part” of the potential solution to the housing crisis, stating that both the city and state need to invest more in public housing. Gonzalez noted that the state budget allocated $225 million to NYCHA but insisted that this is “not enough.”

Ayala believes that the city program continues to grow in size because rents continue to climb while salaries remain static. However, she believes that the city needs to address other issues such as wage inequality and soaring rents in order to provide households with the means to become self-sufficient.

“We need more programs because it’s pretty obvious that more and more people are qualifying because they’re not able to make ends meet, because the rate of rent continues to climb while salaries stay the same,” Ayala said.