Four days away from City Council’s appeal case, New Yorkers are awaiting the fate of the long-contested CityFHEPS housing voucher.

Housing in New York City has remained a point of contention between New Yorkers and the city government for over a decade as the city has struggled to keep up with housing demand, mounting eviction cases, and record-high homeless rates. But in the past three years, this tension has come to a head in a legislative turned legal battle when the City Council sued Mayor Eric Adams earlier this year.

At the center of it all is the new CityFHEPS housing voucher. The voucher is a consolidated version of several preexisting voucher programs meant to move more people, like Jackson Heights, Queens voucher holder Douglass Powell 68, from shelters to homes quickly. 

“I was in the shelter for six months before they even gave me the voucher. I was in there two more years before I found an apartment that would let me [move in] .” Douglas said.

Housing advocacy groups such as UnlockNYC have been tracked widespread voucher discrimination throughout the five boroughs. UnlockNYC said they’re working with the City Council to ensure these reforms address voucher discrimination and slow bureaucratic processes.

According to UnlockNYC, when the CityFHEPS voucher was first reformed in 2021 by increasing its value from $1,200 to $2,200, voucher discrimination cases more than doubled from 268 to 676. 

In 2021, City Council and housing advocacy groups put together a set of reforms that Samuel Stein from Community Service Society said would “Will allow more people to move from shelter to safe and affordable housing quicker, while keeping others housed permanently.” 

These reforms consist of eliminating the 90 shelter stay requirement, which mandated people to stay at least 90 days in a shelter before applying for the voucher, and a working requirement.

Removing reforms like the work requirement would mean that elderly people who have experienced homelessness, like Douglass, would not have to seek part-time employment or risk losing their voucher and apartment.

Other reforms such as allowing people at risk of eviction to apply for the voucher without entering the shelter system, would take significant pressure off of  an already exhausted Department of Homeless Services (DHS), and cost less in the long run. 

When these reforms made it to the floor of City HallMayor Eric Adams vetoed all but one, the 90 day shelter stay requirement. City Council then responded to this veto with a 42-8 override.

Adams refused to enforce City Council's override on the grounds that it is too expensive, there’s not enough housing available, and it would make the voucher harder to use.

As Adams said in a press conference last year, “The legislation was going to take those who lived in shelter and have them compete for the limited supply of housing with those who may have fallen behind in their rent…The inventory is just not there.” 

While Adams projects the cost of implementing these reforms at $17 billion, while City Council and housing advocacy groups refute this, putting the cost at $10 billion. 

“Adams knows there’s enough housing on and off the market and the funding is there,” says Leo Lopez, community organizer with VOCAL New York.  “He would actually be saving the city millions by passing the reforms and keeping people housed.There is clear evidence that it costs more to keep people in shelters than it does to house them.” 

In August of this year, the Manhattan Supreme Court determined that the city could not follow through on the reforms, the presiding judge stating, “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 court argues that only the Department of Social Services can make changes to voucher programs and not City Council. 

But Robert Desir, an attorney with the  Legal Aid Society, explains why this is untrue.“City Council is a co-equal branch of government, and the State government, City Charter, as well as state law contain language that give a lot of roles for the City Council in the area of policy making,” said Desir. “There are also a number of cases that prove that right.” 

In Queens, the borough with the most shelters, according to the New York controller's office, CityFheps reforms would make a significant dent in the increasing shelter population, which has boomed by 512.846% since 2021. 

The two residents in the CityFheps court case reside in Queens, and according to Deiser, “Right now their rents are about $1,200, if they are evicted and go into shelters they could apply for the voucher but the city would be looking at paying over $2,200 for an apartment with CityFheps.”.

According to Legal Aid Society, City Council is following through with the appeal with a potential start date of November 26th, if the City does not request a delayed start. 

Mayor Adams did not respond to requests to comment.