New York City senior mother and disabled son on the verge of homelessness due to voucher confusion

When 80-year-old Carole Bellitti and her 50-year-old son John received word in March confirming they had been pre-approved for the CityFHEPS housing voucher program for low-income households, they thought their prayers had been answered.

Carole and John, who were evicted from their southeast Brooklyn home in March after falling behind in their rent, applied for CityFHEPS through the East Flatbush Homebase Program, a program run by the Department of Homeless Services that aims to prevent homelessness and provide housing stability.

A representative for Catholic Charities Neighborhood Services, which operates the East Flatbush Homebase location, said the Bellittis were issued a “shopping letter,” a pre-approval document allowing households to begin their search for housing under the CityFHEPS program. The letter does not guarantee a voucher, but it does demonstrate to landlords that a household has pre-qualified for assistance and outlines the maximum monthly rent that the city will cover.

Believing they had secured a voucher that would cover 70% of their monthly rent, the Bellittis secured new accommodation in Staten Island and were set for a June 1 move-in.

Days before that move-in date, however, Catholic Charities informed the Bellittis that they did not qualify for CityFHEPS because they had no shelter history. Catholic Charities told the mother and son that the employee who initially processed their case had failed to verify if they had shelter history.

The mother and son, who have been staying in a twin bedroom at a family friend’s home in Canarsie since their March eviction, state that they have now been told they must enter a Bronx shelter if they are to qualify for the voucher program.

John and Carole say they have been sharing a home with ten cats since moving in with the family friend in March, adding that they have encountered cat pee on cooking surfaces.

As uncomfortable as the living situation has become, their friend has asked to leave after nearly three months, and they are now facing the prospect of a stay in a homeless shelter.

The mother-and-son duo are among the many New Yorkers who are on the edge of homeless yet can’t get access to CityFHEPS since they have never stayed in a shelter. City law stipulates that CityFHEPS is primarily available to households with a shelter history. This requirement is at the core of an ongoing legal dispute between City Hall and the City Council.

The city does make some “community placement” CityFHEPS vouchers available to vulnerable city residents, including seniors and veterans, but the majority of vouchers are issued to households with a shelter history.

Of the more than 55,000 households currently using CityFHEPS vouchers, only around 10,000 did not have a past shelter history. The Bellittis are not among the 10,000 community placements despite Carole Bellitti being 80 years old and John Bellitti living with a disability associated with long Covid. It was that disability that caused the Bellittis to get behind in the rent in the first place.

The Bellittis say the house’s living area is overrun with cats. Photo courtesy of John Bellitti.

The City Council voted in 2023 to expand the voucher program to more rent-burdened New Yorkers before they enter the shelter system, but the move was met with pushback from the Adams Administration, which vetoed the council vote, stating that the costs to expand CityFHEPS were too great. CityFHEPS has ballooned to a budget of $1.25 billion in 2025.

The council then overrode that veto, forcing the administration to expand it– which Adams defied citing cost. The council took Adams to court.

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.

Bronx elected officials are among those leading the charge to change the policy. City Council Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala, who chairs the Committee on General Welfare and represents parts of the South Bronx, has long criticized the shelter history requirement.

“If a person qualifies financially and is at risk of eviction, why should they have to go into a shelter first?” Ayala said. “It creates trauma, wastes resources, and makes no sense.”

Bronx housing advocates argue that the financial cost of keeping people in their homes with rental assistance is far lower than the cost of placing families in shelters. According to estimates from the Citizens Budget Commission, the average cost to shelter a family is more than $6,000 per month—far more than the cost of subsidizing rent through a voucher.

“It’s not only more humane, it’s fiscally smarter,” said Ayala.

However, the Mayor’s office said last month that it is “disingenuous” to state that the city does not already provide CityFHEPS vouchers to households outside of shelters. The administration says it provided vouchers for around 10,000 households not living in shelters last year, targeting the most vulnerable residents in New York such as veterans and disabled residents.

But the Bellittis, despite Carole’s age and John’s disability, proved to be unlucky.

Catholic Charities revoked the Bellitti’s shopping letter after conducting a further review and determining that they “did not meet the necessary criteria for immediate assistance.” The organization said qualifying for a voucher is not always straight forward.

“It is important to understand that a shopping letter does not guarantee NYC approval for a CityFHEPS subsidy/voucher. The process for obtaining these housing vouchers is complex and governed by NYC regulations,” Catholic Charities said in a statement.

For both John and Carole Bellitti, who had been dreaming of leaving the twin bedroom in Canarsie, the news was devastating.

“I felt worthless,” John Bellitti said. “I felt so bad for my mother, who has done everything right in life, she paid into the system her whole life. I feel no hope. There’s just no hope.”

Carole Bellitti, meanwhile, said she thought she was going to have a heart attack when she heard the news that she did not apply for the voucher program.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I’m a mess, a total mess.”

Carole said she was later informed by a Homebase representative that she would have to enter the shelter system in order to qualify for CityFHEPS. She alleged that the representative recommended that she enter a shelter in the Bronx, far away from their current home in Canarsie.

“I’d rather be dead,” Carole Bellitti said. “It’s not happening.”

Officials representing Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, who represents the Bellittis in Canarsie, said Narcisse’s office had helped the Bellitti’s secure a shopping letter and some funds through tenants non-profit MET Council on Housing on March 18. Officials stated that news of the voucher’s revocation is “unfortunate.”

DSS Commissioner Molly Park told a Jan. 27 council hearing that most of DSS’s community placements are veterans or seniors referred by Adult Protective Services (APS), according to Citizens Budget Commission, a non-profit, non-profit city government watchdog.

Carole and John Bellitti stated that they have been in contact with APS for over a year as part of efforts to secure a CityFHEPS voucher. APS has not yet replied to a request for comment.

The Bellittis said they have made do with a shared twin bedroom ever since their eviction but they are frightened about what will happen next since they have been told to leave “as soon as possible.”

“Now we’re really going to be homeless,” Carole Bellitti said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”