City Council Speaker Julie Menin and a growing number of her fellow legislators said Friday they will not pass a new NYC budget unless Mayor Zohran Mamdani allocates more money for the city’s rental assistance program, known as CityFHEPS, something he promised to do during his campaign. 

Council members said a handshake deal on the budget between Mamdani and Menin was expected Friday, but has been pushed due to the large number of members who say they’ll vote against it without more CityFHEPS (short for City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement) money. 

Menin said on June 26 that the budget — due Tuesday, June 30 and requiring a majority vote to pass — is currently “stuck” on CityFHEPS. She joined 14 other council members rallying outside City Hall Friday morning who vowed not to sign off on the budget without the mayor including additional money for rental assistance, a politically uncommon move for a speaker on the eve of a budget deal.

“We are not seeing from the administration the type of investment that we need to see in CityFHEPS, so that is why I was out there today really advocating for the investment,” Menin told reporters after the rally. “I think we’ve been pretty clear … The Council is insisting on CityFHEPS.”

City Council Speaker Julie Menin talks to reporters about CityFHEPS after a City Hall rally.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

Members refused to confirm how many of their colleagues would vote no on a budget that doesn’t include additional CityFHEPS funding, though Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez, who chairs the Council’s housing committee, said she was aware of other members who would vote no and weren’t present at the rally. 

When asked by amNewYork whether a majority of members committed to voting no, Sanchez said, “It’s enough that they held back the handshake.”

A City Hall spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.  

Council seeks $300M more for CityFHEPS
Sanchez speaks outside City Hall in support of expanding CityFHEPS.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

Menin said the Council is seeking at least an additional $300 million commitment to CityFHEPS in the budget; housing advocates say the number they and council members aligned with them are looking for is $500 million.

CityFHEPS currently supports over 60,000 households through a system in which households pay about a third of their income toward rent and the city pays the remainder, making it the largest rental assistance program in the nation. 

The fight over expanding the city’s rental assistance program was sparked in 2023 when the City Council passed four bills to expand the program: Those laws ended the requirement that a person needs to live in a city shelter to have access to CityFHEPS vouchers, eliminated the program’s work requirement and shifted the income eligibility from 200% below the poverty line to 50% of an area’s median income. They also expanded voucher eligibility to all individuals at risk of eviction who met the other CityFHEPS requirements.

Adams vetoed those bills, the Council overrode his veto, and then sued the city to force it to comply with those laws when it wasn’t.

The Council has prevailed in each of the courts the case has moved to, and Mamdani campaigned on dropping the litigation. 

But the current mayor broke that promise, however, when he appealed the suit to the state’s highest court in March, picking up the Adams administration’s argument that the Council didn’t have the legislative authority to pass those types of laws and that the city didn’t have enough money to pay for it.

The suit is pending before the Court of Appeals, and arguments before the panel of judges are set for September, though both sides are actively engaged in ongoing settlement talks.

The full expansion could cost anywhere between $6 billion and $20 billion over the next five years, an analysis from the city’s comptroller found. An analysis from housing advocacy group WIN, shared with amNewYork, found that a $500 million expansion would waive the work and shelter requirement and expand income eligibility only to those facing eviction in rent-stabilized apartments. 

Menin and Sanchez said they believed there was easily enough funding in the city budget for the type of CityFHEPS expansion members were seeking, pointing to the additional money City Hall recently said it had from tourism and real estate taxes

“Of course, the money can be found in the budget for CityFHEPS,” Menin said. “A couple of weeks ago we indicated that there was actually a lot of additional funding. We held a whole press conference on the additional funding, so of course, there is the money to do this.”

Council says CityFHEPS expansion costs money because it saves money

She, Sanchez, other members, and housing advocates emphasized that paying to expand CityFHEPS would actually save the city money, as it would cost less to operate the city’s shelters. WIN says that the city would have saved $1 billion if it had implemented the expansion when the laws were passed and will save the city $635 million over the next five years if it expands the program now.

“It’s basically costing the city $54 a day to have someone on the CityFHEPS program versus $270 a day in the shelter system,” Menin said. “So, if we’re really talking about fiscal responsibility … the right fiscal thing is to expand this program.”

She said she was still pushing for Mamdani to drop the lawsuit against the program’s expansion and reach a settlement with the Council.

“There is no point in having this costly, continued litigation that only serves to delay a responsible settlement,” Menin said. “We want a responsible settlement on CityFHEPS, and I think the council stands ready, willing, and able to reach a settlement that protects vulnerable New Yorkers, but that also recognizes a cost containment that has to happen.”

Sanchez said there was no possibility of the full expansion, as mandated by the 2023 laws, being included in the budget.