The Legal Aid Society is suing New York City Mayor Eric Adams for failing to implement laws that expand rental aid to low-income New Yorkers, intensifying the battle among the City Council, advocates and the mayor over the best way to address the city’s affordable housing crisis.
The group filed a class-action lawsuit in state Supreme Court on Wednesday on behalf of four plaintiffs who claim they are unable to access housing vouchers they are entitled to under a law passed by the Council last year.
The city was legally obligated to put the new rules into effect this month but has yet to enact them. The new policies would lower the income threshold for poor New Yorkers to qualify for housing vouchers and provide aid to those facing homelessness.
But the plan exposed a bitter divide between councilmembers and the mayor.
Adams vetoed the package of bills last summer, citing their expected costs, but the Council overturned his veto. The Council is currently weighing its own legal options and could file its own lawsuit or enter a motion to join the Legal Aid Society’s case.
Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for Adams, said in a statement that there are more than 10,000 households with housing vouchers in the city shelter system that have been unable to find permanent housing.
“Furthermore, the bills violate state law as they seek to legislate in an area where authority is reserved to the state,” she added.
Adams has said the expansion of rental subsidies is prohibitively expensive and that the billions of dollars in costs would be better spent on building new affordable housing.
The Council and housing advocates have accused the mayor of exaggerating the legislation’s costs. They argue that helping low-income New Yorkers afford permanent housing is an established and necessary policy that should be adopted alongside the city’s efforts to build new housing.
“I feel punished for making a living, even though I still struggle to pay rent or purchase groceries,” said…
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