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Supporters say expanding the state’s new Housing Access Voucher Program, which helps low-income New Yorkers at risk of homelessness afford a place to live, could bridge the gap for 5,500 city households whose federal rent assistance expires this year.
Some 5,500 households across the city who rely on federal housing vouchers to afford their rent will lose that aid this year—and homelessness advocates say the state should step up to fill the gap.
As Albany finalizes a very late budget plan, lawmakers and advocates are continuing to press for it to include more money for the Housing Voucher Access Program (HAVP), a state-run rental subsidy which helps low-income New Yorkers at risk of homelessness afford a place to live.
Additional HAVP funds, they say, could replace pandemic-era federal Emergency Housing Vouchers that run out this year—earlier than originally expected—after the Trump administration and Congress stopped funding them. Thousands of city households that use the vouchers could become homeless once they expire, advocates warn.
“We need Governor Hochul to step up now to ensure that vulnerable New Yorkers can remain in their homes. HAVP is clearly the best way to do this,” Dave Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said in a statement Thursday. “Doing nothing while 5,500 households in New York face homelessness is unthinkable.”
The state launched HAVP as a pilot program earlier this year, issuing around 1,000 rental assistance vouchers in New York City, with priority going to people in the shelter system. Voucher holders typically pay around 30 percent of their income toward rent, and the voucher covers the remainder.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal for this year kept HAVP funding flat, at just $50 million. But lawmakers in the State Senate and Assembly want at least $250 million for the program, pointing to the affordability crisis and the growing number of New Yorkers who struggle to afford rent.
HAVP’s size pales in comparison to New York’s City voucher program, the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement or CityFHEPS, which serves nearly 70,000 households. The city spent almost $2 billion on CityFHEPS last year, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looking to reform the initiative to cut some of those costs (reportedly at the behest of Gov. Hochul, who increased state aid to the city this year to help the mayor close a multi-billion dollar budget gap).
“New York cannot claim to be serious about addressing affordability while refusing to invest in the very programs that keep people housed,” Judith Goldiner, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, said in a statement Thursday.
A spokesperson for the governor acknowledged the seriousness of the expiring federal vouchers, and said it was on lawmakers in Washington to take action.
“The federal government defunding emergency housing vouchers will cause families and New Yorkers to be put back into the streets unless Republicans in control of Congress take a stand and help push for additional funding,” the spokesperson said. “New York’s Republican Congressional members must push for funding in the federal budget to provide for these families while there is still time to act.”
The governor’s office pointed to Hochul’s other housing investments in recent years, including more than $1 billion in COVID-19 emergency rental assistance and millions more for supportive housing and homelessness programs.
New York State’s budget is now nearly two months late. The governor announced the broad perimeters of an agreement earlier this month, but negotiations over a variety of hot button issues have dragged on. Lawmakers began voting on their first budget bill Wednesday, which included other housing measures—but no additional money for HAVP.
Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, who co-sponsored the bill that created the program, said Friday that she’s still hopeful the final budget deal with include more voucher money.
“We are not giving up on HAVP,” Rosenthal, who chairs the Assembly’s housing committee, said in a statement to City Limits.
“Both the Assembly and the Senate are in lockstep when it comes to expanding this vital program and protecting the more than 5,000 New Yorkers who will lose their federal housing vouchers this fall thanks to Donald Trump,” she added. “Like any negotiation, it’s not over until it’s over.”
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