New York Judge Sides With Mayor Adams in Lawsuit Over Housing Voucher Expansion

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announces a pilot program to deploy portable gun scanners throughout the city's subway system, on March 28, 2024. (NYC Office of the Mayor via AP/Screenshot via NTD)

NEW YORK—New York City Mayor Eric Adams achieved a legal victory when a New York State Supreme Court judge on Aug. 1 blocked a city council-backed lawsuit that sought to force the city to expand a housing voucher program.

In his five-page ruling, Judge Lyle E. Frank agreed with the mayor that the city council lacked any legal basis to compel enforcement of its expanded City Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (FHEPS) voucher program, mainly because of jurisdictional issues.

The judge made clear that the question under consideration was not the eligibility of people seeking to claim FHEPS benefits under the program’s rules. Rather, it was whether the city council could advance a social service that legally falls within the domain of the state and the entity that the state chooses to carry out this function—in this case, the city’s Department of Social Services (DSS).

“The Court finds that entity that serves as the ‘social services district’ that has received authority from the State to set social services policy is City DSS, and consequently the Council’s new laws conflict with that state law delegation of policymaking authority and is preempted,” the judge wrote.

City council member Pierana Ana Sanchez said she was disappointed with the decision.

“For residents in my district—where nearly 60 percent of households are rent-burdened—and New Yorkers everywhere who are moments away from eviction, this is yet another chapter in our city’s housing crisis,” she wrote on X.

FHEPS originated in 2017 as a city—and state-funded successor to the Family Eviction and Prevention Supplement (FEPS). Its primary purpose was to offer rental assistance to impoverished families with children.

In May 2023, the city council’s progressive majority passed a number of laws expanding FHEPS, local laws 99, 100, 101, and 102, known as the City FHEPS Reform Laws. The idea was to lower the threshold for receiving assistance, with a view to helping poor citizens move from shelters into permanent housing.

The amount of the rent supplement would depend partly on a household’s income and the number of people in the household. It could potentially cover a family’s entire rent, though public cash assistance or income from a job might require the family to cover a portion. Eligible families would get FHEPS for up to five years.

Mayor Adams vetoed the FHEPS reform laws, prompting the city council to pass them again with a veto-proof majority and to vote to authorize Adrienne Adams to take all necessary legal action to force their enactment.

The legal battle closely paralleled a separate feud between the city council and the mayor over solitary confinement in the city’s jails. In that dispute, too, the city council relied on its ability to pass veto-proof bills pursuant to its charter and to empower its speaker to take legal action if push came to shove.

The city council did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.