Mayor Adams touts millions for NYCHA, supportive housing, tenant safeguards in self-proclaimed ‘best budget ever’

Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday a slew of new housing investments that will be included in his Executive Budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, which will be released later this week.

In his forthcoming Fiscal Year 2026 spending plan, Hizzoner committed to investing millions of dollars in upgrading public housing units, building more supportive apartments, and providing tenant protection services.

Adams made the announcement this week as part of his budget rollout, which he is calling the “best budget ever. ” It comes as he vies for a second term as an independent candidate in the November general election.

During an April 28 news conference in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, Adams said that his administration has placed a focus on “creating more homes, connecting more New Yorkers to homes…and keeping more New Yorkers in the homes they already have.”

FILE – Buildings at a NYCHA housing complex.File photo/Grant Lancaster

“That’s the key here: create, connect, and keep,” the mayor added. “That is what we have done every day since we came into office and [the] Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget is going to really reflect the success and the continued the success of moving in the right direction.”

The mayor’s announcement includes putting an additional $350 million into two programs designed to convert New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) units from federal Section 9 to Section 8 to make renovations easier. The funding for the programs, known as the NYCHA Preservation Trust and Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT), will go toward refurbishing thousands of public housing apartments, according to City Hall.

Adams said the city would also add funding to and realign a program designed to add more supportive housing units, known as the 15/15 Supportive Housing Initiative. The city will construct and preserve 5,850 supportive housing units, which provide services in areas like mental health and substance use, on top of housing, with the $46 million investment.

“This is nearly 6,000 homes where someone can reclaim their life and renew hope,” Adams said. “Homes that provide a path to stability, community, and common purpose.”

The administration is also reconfiguring the program from how it was initially conceived under former Mayor Bill de Blasio to place supportive units in congregate buildings rather than “scattered sites,” which utilize apartments on the private market, according to the mayor’s office.

Under the original program, there was supposed to be a 50-50 split between congregate and scattered sites. However, given the city’s acute shortage of open rental units, the administration decided to double down on the congregate model instead.

Furthermore, the mayor touted a $7.6 million allocation to the city’s “Anti-Harassment Tenant Protection Program,” which provides legal services to tenants facing landlord harassment.

Speaker takes credit

However, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor this June, took credit for Monday’s announcement.

In a statement, the speaker said the council got the mayor’s office to agree to investing in supportive housing and tenant protection programs through their negotiations over the “City of Yes” zoning overhaul late last year. She also noted that some of the new funding is simply the mayor restoring some of his previous budget cuts.

“Today’s announcement represents another victory for the Council’s City for All housing plan, for which we secured $5 billion in investments for housing and neighborhoods that include these announcements,” the speaker said. “We advocated for and secured greater investments in supportive housing and shifting to production of congregate sites, as well as homeowner and tenant protections that were added and restored from the mayor’s budget cuts, respectively.”