The Legal Aid Society filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday to force Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to enact a suite of laws that widen access to city-issued housing vouchers.
Legal Aid announced the suit, filed in New York County Supreme Court on behalf of four plaintiffs, during a City Hall news conference on Feb. 14. The legal defense group followed through on its threat to take legal action after the administration refused to implement the laws, to expand eligibility for the voucher program known as CityFHEPS, by a Jan. 9 deadline.
The legislation would significantly increase the number of people eligible for CityFHEPS vouchers, which were previously only given to homeless individuals living in shelters, by making them available to anyone at risk of eviction and a wider-range of low-income individuals.
During the press conference Adriene Holder, the head of Legal Aid’s civil practice, said the four plaintiffs represent a class of thousands of homeless and low-income individuals who are not able to access CityFHEPS vouchers because the mayor has declined to implement the laws.
“All of these plaintiffs have one thing in common: if Mayor Adams would implement the laws duly enacted by the City Council, their housing needs would be met,” Holder said. “No more sleepless nights in shelters, no more trips back and forth to housing court and no more harassing calls from landlords and management companies demanding and threatening eviction. Our litigation seeks full implementation of these laws.”
The legal argument undergirding the suit is that the laws were passed by the council over the mayor’s veto and were adopted, so he must implement them.
“These are laws, the mayor has to obey them, like the rest of us have to obey laws,” said Legal Aid attorney Judith Goldiner.
In a statement, the mayor’s office responded to the suit saying “we will review the filing.”
The four plaintiffs named in the suit are Mary Cronneit, Carolina Tejeda, Susan Acks and Marie Vincent. They are all either at risk of eviction or living in a shelter and currently do not qualify for a voucher.
Vincent, who was present at the news conference, is a cancer survivor who currently lives in a shelter where she has resided since last year after she was evicted by her landlord. Because she works, Vincent said, her income is too high for her to get a voucher under the current rules, but she would be qualified if the mayor enacted the reforms.
“Mayor Adams, you ran a campaign promising to help working people, people like me, but I’m realizing now that it was all lip service,” Vincent said. “Promises made, promises broken.”
The move comes after the City Council last week empowered Speaker Adrienne Adams to bring legal action against City Hall over not implementing the laws. Yet, when asked if the council would join Legal Aid’s suit or file its own, Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala said Wednesday that they are still mulling that decision.
“I don’t think there’s a reason why we didn’t, we’re still exploring our options,” Ayala said. “Obviously we believe strongly that the plaintiffs that filed the suit need to be part of the conversation and I think that’s what you’re kind of seeing play out today.”
The City Council passed the measures into law last summer, overriding the objections of Adams, who vetoed them after the first time they passed.
The laws are aimed at easing the immense strain the influx of over 170,000 migrants to the city has placed on its shelter system by keeping more low-income individuals in their homes and moving more homeless people out of shelter.
Adams has been steadfast in his opposition to the laws, charging they bare a hefty $17 billion five-year price tag and would create competition between voucher holders currently in shelter and those facing eviction for a limited number of apartments. He also claims the council cannot legally make changes to the program through legislation because it is overseen by the state government and preempted by state social services law.
The mayor, during a Tuesday press conference, said the laws do not address the root of the city’s homelessness and housing crises: a lack of inventory. He added that he believes the measures are “unlawful.”
“You aggravate the problem when you’re now going to give thousands of more people vouchers to compete with those who have vouchers in their hands,” Adams said. “We’re going to always follow the law, lawful law. We believe that their move was unlawful.”
However, Legal Aid and former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who runs the homeless shelter provider Win, strongly rebuked the mayor’s arguments.
Quinn said that while the city clearly has an inventory problem, there are enough apartments to accommodate a greater number of voucher holders.
“Is there enough housing stock out there? No,” Quinn said.
“But there is enough housing out there that Ms. Vincent found six apartments off of NYC Housing Connect and lost them because she doesn’t qualify for a voucher,” she added, referring to the city’s affordable housing lottery system.
Quinn also said that the number of people using the vouchers has been going up month-to-month over the past year.
When it comes to the mayor’s legal argument, Legal Aid Attorney Robert Desir said the group is confident the council had the legal authority to legislate on the program under the City Charter and state law.
“From our perspective and the research that we’ve done, the passage of the laws and the override was sound,” Desir said. “There’s certainly authority for the council to act in this regard and they did.”
