NYC housing activists press Mamdani to expand CityFHEPS program

Housing advocates continue to be angered by the back and forth over expanding the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) program, with many feeling that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has abandoned his campaign promise to reform it.

- ARIAMA C. LONG

“We cannot balance the city’s budget on the backs of unhoused folks and rent-burdened tenants. This is a matter of life and death. We are not expendable,” said Calvin Michael, member-leader of the Safety Net Activists at the Urban Justice Center, in a recent oped for amNewYork. “Fully implementing the CityFHEPS expansion laws would save lives.”

CityFHEPS is a rental subsidy program designed to be similar to the federal Section 8 program where tenants pay 30% of their income in rent and the city pays the rest.

The program has been a point of contention for several years. On the campaign trail, Mamdani vowed to drop the lawsuit about the program, a holdover from the previous administration, and implement the CityFHEPS expansion. However, his office filed for an appeal to the lawsuit last week, much to the dismay of housing advocates.

After the COVID pandemic, several Black and Brown communities were facing a slew of evictions and soaring homelessness. According to Right to Counsel NYS, landlords filed to evict nearly 600,000 households between 2020 and 2025, with 80% for nonpayment. In some cases, this was due to a backlog at the city's Department of Social Services (DSS) making rent payouts through the CityFHEPS.