As New York City grapples with the ongoing housing crisis, CityFHEPS, a city-funded voucher program for low-income households, has become increasingly important in ensuring homes for the city’s poorest people. However, the program, which has grown dramatically since its inception in 2018, is embroiled in court battles as part of a years-long effort to expand it.
CityFHEPS began in 2019 under the de Blasio Administration as a unified version of numerous city-funded rental subsidy programs aimed at reducing the number of homeless shelters in the city by requiring low-income households to pay no more than 30% of their income on rent.
The program has risen from a budget of under $25 million in its first year to a whopping $1.25 billion in 2025, covering more than 55,000 homes, highlighting the magnitude of the city’s housing need.
The program’s expansion has helped to alleviate the strain on the enormously oversubscribed Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, which also ensures that low-income households spend no more than 30% of their income in rent. According to 2024 data, almost 123,000 households in New York City rely on federally supported housing vouchers, which are still in high demand, with years-long waitlists.
With Section 8 under increasing demand, CityFHEPS has proven to be a vital resource for the city’s low-income families who cannot afford market-rate apartments and are largely excluded from the city’s housing lottery, which bases “affordable” rates on an Area Median Income (AMI) that does not reflect the true citywide median.
CityFHEPS, like the Section 8 program, is one of the few options accessible to low-income New Yorkers looking for housing in the city.
However, detractors claim the scheme has an inherent defect, which has been the source of a two-year legal battle between City Hall and City Council. CityFHEPS is primarily offered to homeless shelter residents, which means that a rent-burdened household must lose their home and enter the shelter system to qualify for a city-funded housing voucher.
The City Council voted in 2023 to expand the program to rent-burdened New Yorkers before they join the shelter system, but the Adams Administration opposed the motion, citing the high expenses of expanding CityFHEPS. The council then overrode the veto, requiring the administration to expand it, which Adams refused, citing cost. The council then brought a lawsuit.
The cost of the expansion varies widely, with the Council’s fiscal impact statement predicting a total cost of $10.6 billion over five years. Meanwhile, City Hall predicts that the expansion will cost the city $17.2 billion over the next five years.
Last August, the New York County Supreme Court decided in Adams’ favor, arguing that state law precludes the City Council from making policies about social services. The City Council and the nonprofit Legal Aid Society are appealing the decision.
Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala, chair of the Council’s Committee on General Welfare and representative of the 8th Council District in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx, expressed disappointment with the Adams administration’s efforts to stymie the program’s expansion, noting that it costs the city more to house people in homeless shelters than it does to keep them in their current apartment through a housing voucher.
“Why not let a person with an apartment apply?” Ayala stated.
Ayala also lambasted City Hall for a recent move to impose a condition that residents on the program for five years spend 40% of their income on rent rather than 30%. According to City Hall authorities, the requirement will only apply to households with earned money.
Ayala, on the other hand, pointed out that the vouchers are based on a household’s pre-tax income rather than net income, and that low-income households continue to struggle to afford expenses even after obtaining CityFHEPS vouchers. Ayala recounted receiving Section 8 vouchers in the 1990s and stated that rent accounted for over half of her net income.
“When I had Section 8, that meant that my entire second check of the month went toward the rent for the following month,” Ayala informed me. “Now we have a completely different situation, where we have higher rates of utilities, higher rates of food, and expenses for children.”
Ayala believes that the city’s move to raise the rent burden to 40% will make it more difficult for families to save money and become self-sufficient.
Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez, chair of the Council’s Committee on Housing and representative of a portion of the West Bronx in Council District 14, also chastised the Mayor’s office, describing the Adams Administration as a “paradox” that touts affordable housing preservation and construction goals while failing to do the “one thing” that can most benefit local communities.
Sanchez stated that under CityFHEPS’ existing eligibility standards, the “only place” where a rent-burdened household may receive assistance is after entering the shelter system.
Sanchez emphasized that an eviction removes a family from their home and disconnects them from essential services.
“There’s a lot of research that shows that a family that suffers through an eviction gets disconnected from their neighborhood doctors, their neighborhood schools, their community, and their social network,” Sanchez told me. “That has a profound influence on that family’s ability to move on and be stable.
According to Robert Desir, staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, it would be a “much more desirable outcome” if people could stay in their apartments. He stated that homes that would otherwise qualify for the program are now paying rentals less than $1,500 and that the city would save a significant amount of money by providing vouchers to households before they enter the shelter system.
Desir stated that tenants are unlikely to obtain such low rentals again if they are evicted and forced to locate new housing using CityFHEPS vouchers. He also mentioned that it is disruptive.
“People who have been in their communities for a very long time are being removed,which can be problematic for families that have children that go to school,” Desir told me.
The mayor’s administration responded aggressively to criticism, citing the program’s significant increase since he took office in 2022. City Hall officials stated that the program’s budget has increased from $253 million in FY21 to a projected $1.25 billion in FY25.
Officials further noted that it is “factually inaccurate” to claim that the Mayor’s office is hesitant to grow CityFHEPS, considering that the program’s budget is now five times larger than it was when Adams entered office.
They also stated that lowering city support for households that have received CityFHEPS for five years or more allows the city to direct resources to those in greatest need. They stated that CityFHEPS is not intended to be a permanent policy and intends to put households on the path to self-sufficiency, calling the eventual withdrawal of city help a “common sense” approach.
Sanchez, on the other hand, claims that the move will only save the city approximately $25 million per year and urges City Hall to “find the savings somewhere else.” She claimed that increasing the rent burden for low-income New Yorkers will make it even more difficult for households to save money, leaving them with less discretionary income than before.
“We’re going to save $25 million a year by screwing up lives for our lowest-income New Yorkers who are trying to make ends meet, trying to work, and trying to keep their families afloat,” Sanchez told the press.
Meanwhile, Ayala stated that the policy will ensure that CityFHEPS remains a “revolving door to poverty” with no way out for voucher holders.
Rachel Fee, executive director of the Housing Conference, an affordable housing nonprofit, said raising the rent burden to 40% would create a “huge burden” on low-income New Yorkers by depriving them of money required for necessities like food and daycare.
Given the exponential development of the CityFHEPS program, City Hall argued that it was inappropriate for the Adams Administration to face criticism from housing groups. They advised campaigners to concentrate their efforts on requesting that the state and federal governments “step up” their housing voucher programs.
The New York State legislature includes a $50 million housing voucher pilot program in the recently enacted state budget, thereby replacing the state’s $65 million Advantage housing voucher program, which was eliminated by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2011 as part of his efforts to balance the budget.
The state’s Residence Voucher Access Program, which goes into effect in March 2026, will provide state-funded vouchers to homeless families or those who are about to lose their residence. Vouchers will be given to households earning up to 50% of AMI.
State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, who represents portions of Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, said the program will “really help” families at risk of homelessness by allowing them to get direct state funding for stable housing.
However, City Hall officials voiced anger that the state is receiving plaudits for the new pilot program while the mayor’s office is being chastised for overseeing a program that dwarfs the new state voucher program. Assembly Member Claire Valdez of Western Queens has stated that the state’s new voucher scheme “does not go far enough.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has proposed significant cuts to the federal Section 8 voucher program, including combining Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing aid, and assistance for the elderly and disabled into a single grant and reducing the total by $27 billion nationwide.
Fee claimed that Trump’s proposed cuts would destroy the federal safety net, with “catastrophic” implications for New York City. The city and state would have to chip in to make up the difference.
The Citizens Budget Committee, a neutral nonprofit that studies municipal and state public affairs, is skeptical that the city can afford the CityFHEPS expansions that the Council is advocating for.
In February, the group released a study on CityFHEPS, stating that people “don’t appreciate” how large the program has grown and that the city can’t “voucher its way out of the crisis.” The report also said that CityFHEPS’ present growth is “unsustainable,” noting that the program has not reduced demand for shelter space or addressed rising rents in the city.
Yvonne Peña, a public benefits and housing policy analyst with Community Service Society, a nonprofit advocating for fair access to affordable housing, believes the program’s development and demand reflect the housing crisis.
“We are seeing that more people need housing and need support financially to stay and to remain stably housed,” Pea told the group. “The data is undeniable.”
Sanchez, meanwhile, “took exception” to the suggestion that the Council is attempting to “voucher its way out” of the housing crisis, adding that the Council has been “doing many different things” to fight the crisis, including extending the CityFHEPS program.
Sean Campion, CBC’s Director of Housing and Economic Development Studies, stated that the extension would practically quadruple the program’s present size and questioned the city’s ability to fund the costs.
“The city budget is in a pretty precarious place before you can start looking at the federal cuts,” Campion told the media.
He emphasized that CityFHEPS must be part of a broad strategy for solving the housing crisis.
Campion also stated that the city is facing not only cuts to Section 8 but also cuts to Medicaid, SNAP food assistance, and a slew of other “downstream effects” that the Trump administration’s policies may have.
“In the event that these things do come to pass, you know, they’re going to have to make choices about what,” Campion replied.
However, Campion allayed some of the concerns about Trump’s proposed cuts by emphasizing that the Section 8 program has bipartisan support in Congress and was not curtailed during Trump’s first time in office.
“I think there’s some general faith that what was proposed in that budget may not come to pass,” Campion told reporters.
However, even if the Section 8 program survives Trump’s proposed funding cuts, issues about CityFHEPS and its role in alleviating the housing crisis would persist.
CityFHEPS can help address the city’s housing crisis, but both supporters and opponents agree that it cannot be the only solution.
Gonzalez, for example, stated that housing vouchers are simply “one part” of the potential answer to the housing crisis, implying that both the city and the state must invest more in public housing. Gonzalez pointed out that the state budget gave $225 million to NYCHA but stressed that this is “not enough.”
Ayala believes that the city program will continue to increase in size as rents rise while salaries remain unchanged. However, she feels that the city must address other concerns, such as wage disparity and rising rents, in order to give people the means to become self-sufficient.
“We need more programs because it’s pretty obvious that more and more people are qualifying because they’re unable to make ends meet, because the rate of rent continues to climb while salaries stay the same,” says Ayala.