UPPER WEST SIDE, Manhattan (PIX11) – A federal program created to help people at risk of homelessness find and keep homes has now been cut by the Trump Administration.

It’s having a strong impact in the Tri-state region, and particularly in New York City, where the housing authority, NYCHA, administered the federal program. With those federal dollars gone, the effects on residents are felt at a personal and deep level, as one resident and a housing organization that’s advocating for her made clear on Thursday.

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Olga Garcia, 72, has lived in her Upper West Side one-bedroom for four-and-a-half years. Her neighborhood is one of the most expensive in the city, but thanks to the housing advocacy group Project FIND, which bought her building more than 50 years ago and converted it into affordable units, residents like Garcia can live there.

Even with a rent price that’s a fraction of the market rate for the neighborhood, Garcia still relies on the subsidy she receives from the Emergency Housing Voucher, or EHV, program.

“I live on a fixed income,” Garcia said in an interview in her living room. “This is my community where I feel safe.”

The retiree said that her federal housing voucher covers about two-thirds of her $1,500 monthly rent. That subsidy has now ended, four years before its originally scheduled conclusion. So now Garcia has been instructed by NYCHA to leave her apartment on West 71st Street by the end of this week, and transfer to another building nearly four miles north, at 145th Street.

“How am I going to leave my home?” Garcia asked.

“Moving out of my home is going to cost me about $3,000,” she continued, “because moving is very expensive.”

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Garcia had been in a shelter before finding her place on the Upper West Side, operated by Project FIND. The housing advocacy group called Garcia a model tenant and said that if she or anyone in her situation has to leave, it would make the community worse off.

Mark Jennings, Project FIND’s executive director, said that both the ending of the federal program and the city’s proposed next steps are hurting residents.

“To move people around like stray cats and stray dogs in a shelter,” Jennings said, “it’s  not housing stability, which is what the housing vouchers are supposed to be all about.”

For its part, NYCHA issued a statement explaining the overall situation and how it’s trying to handle it:

“Last year, the federal government announced that it would be ending the Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) Program early, with funding running out by the end of 2026. NYCHA is working to identify alternative subsidized housing options for EHV participants, and they must complete a public housing application in order to receive an offer. NYCHA began matching EHV participants to alternative housing options this spring and will continue accepting applications on a rolling basis through the summer. We recognize the challenge this presents for EHV participants, and our goal is to offer an affordable housing alternative to each affected household.”

That could mean a move 74 blocks north for Ms. Garcia. It’s a move that she said she doesn’t want to make, and added that she’s not the only one. Garcia said she’s had to let some of her neighbors, who are also in the EHV program, know that their subsidies are running out.

For now, Garcia said that she’s staying put for as long as she can.

“So this doesn’t take a toll on me emotionally, financially, physical[ly],” she said.

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