While advocates who specialize in public benefits have called for these backlogs to be cut, they say New Yorkers who rely on cash and food support are not yet out of the woods.
The first four months of Fiscal Year 2024 saw timely processing of just 14.3 percent of cash assistance applications—a new low—and 41.6 percent of SNAP applications. Delays can have serious consequences for applicants, from hunger to missed rent payments that can put families at risk of eviction.
There is no equality without affordable child care. Yet despite claiming to stand up for women, since entering office, the mayor has made cut after cut to pre-K and 3-K — programs that have been proven to help women enter the workplace and thrive.
In a Tuesday letter, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said the Department of Social Services has until Feb. 7 to begin implementing CityFHEPS voucher bills or her body will have “no other option” but to take legal action.
Despite a veto override, a December letter from Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Park says certain CityFHEPs voucher legislation passed by the City Council “cannot be implemented at this time.”
“Hundreds of thousands of New York City households depend on government benefits to avoid eviction and homelessness. Yet countless households are experiencing ongoing and systemic delays when attempting to apply or renew their benefits.”
Sources familiar with the plan say the city is looking to open 950 shelter beds at sites run by dozens of religious organizations in the coming months.
Immigrant-headed households make up only 17 percent of the city’s population but constitute 21 percent of households earning below the “true cost of living.”
The mayor issued a directive to the NYPD, emergency medical services and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene empowering them to “involuntarily transport” people experiencing acute mental health crises to hospitals, even if they do not present an immediate threat to themselves or others. But it remains unclear where they will go for continued assistance and housing after they are discharged.
A new report describes the path to social housing in New York through 20 policy proposals, from overhauling the property tax code and abolishing the city’s tax lien sale to cracking down on landlord violations and boosting public funding for tenant organizing.
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