“It’s pretty dreadful,” one housing advocate said. “The governor decided to-go drinks and a stadium in Buffalo were more important than housing the homeless and marginalized New Yorkers.”
The settlement comes as legislators and organizers in New York rally for proposed legislation called Fair Pay for Home Care, which would increase the minimum wage for home healthcare workers by 150 percent.
“We must reject efforts to roll back Raise the Age and stop scapegoating children and youth for the decades-long failure of government to invest equitably in them and their communities in the first place.”
The State Senate and Assembly included a quarter-billion dollars to fund the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP), which would create a new rent voucher for New Yorkers experiencing or at-risk of homelessness—including immigrants without legal status—with values pegged to fair market rent levels.
The findings, released by anti-poverty nonprofit Robin Hood and Columbia University’s Center on Poverty & Social Policy, examined the impact of the Early Learning Child Care Act, which would institute a payroll tax to fund child care subsidies for families with children under 3 years old.
“There is currently no right to public defense in immigration proceedings, but having a lawyer to navigate this notoriously complicated system advances the cause of justice.”
Youth and advocates are optimistic, saying Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget takes important steps to expand resources, but that more needs to be done to make up for years of ‘chronic underfunding’ across the system.
‘New York State allows millions of dollars to flow into private schools without any measures to ensure students actually receive a secular education. New legislation aims to fix this issue.’
It’s not yet clear when the state’s latest COVID-19 rent relief program will open to applicants, though officials are expecting it to launch by the end of May. In the meantime, tenant advocates and housing rights groups are gearing up to help thousands of renters compile and submit the forms necessary to apply for the assistance.
While housing advocates say the budget deal included a major victory for tenants––creating a multi-billion dollar program for rent relief––it included less funds for NYCHA and homelessness prevention than stakeholders had hoped for.