{"id":186427,"date":"2026-04-05T16:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/186427\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T16:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T16:21:07","slug":"mamdani-pledged-affordable-new-york-housing-in-his-campaign-how-is-that-going-zohran-mamdani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/186427\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani pledged affordable New York housing in his campaign. How is that going? | Zohran Mamdani"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City<\/a> mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>\u2019s decision to appeal a court order that the city must expand its housing voucher program, despite his campaign pledge<\/a> to implement it, has angered advocates for the homeless population.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, who must figure out how to close a $5.4bn budget<\/a> deficit, explained his decision by citing the cost of the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) program, which helps people staying in shelters or at risk of homelessness find permanent housing.<\/p>\n

Advocates for the vouchers say the program is crucial to solving what they and Mamdani describe as a homelessness crisis.<\/p>\n

Flip-flopping on a campaign pledge is, of course, not unusual among politicians, who often share big ideas on the stump that are hard to implement once elected. But despite that reality, the decisions on the housing vouchers and homeless encampments could cost the mayor support among people with high hopes for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a classic example of a political promise made and a promise broken and really a betrayal of the homeless and unhoused community in New York<\/a> who took him at his word,\u201d said Christine Quinn, president and CEO of WIN, the city\u2019s largest shelter provider.<\/p>\n

The Department of Social Services launched CityFHEPS in 2018, and it has since helped more than 123,000 people find permanent housing, according to a January report from the state comptroller<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the cost of the program increased significantly, from $176m in 2019 to a projected $1.2bn in fiscal year 2025.<\/p>\n

City council approved a legislative package<\/a> in 2023 aimed at making it easier for people to access the vouchers by, for example, increasing the income eligibility threshold and eliminating a requirement to have resided in a shelter. Then mayor Eric Adams vetoed the bills<\/a> because they \u201ccould saddle taxpayers with billions of dollars\u201d each year and exceed \u201cthe council\u2019s legal authority\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

The council got enough votes to override the veto, but Adams still refused to implement the laws, which prompted a lawsuit from people seeking rental assistance. A lower court sided with Adams, but a New York state appeals court ruled in July 2025 that the city must expand the voucher program. That court later granted the Adams administration leave to appeal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During his campaign, Mamdani stated that he would drop the court challenge and \u201censure expansion proceeds as scheduled\u201d. As it neared a 25 March deadline to reach a deal, his administration did appeal<\/a>, using the same justification as Adams: that the city council had exceeded its legal authority.<\/p>\n

In a press conference<\/a> held on the day of the deadline, Mamdani explained the decision by saying that the city\u2019s fiscal situation when he took office in January was worse than expected and that an expansion would cost the city more than $4bn in the next few years. He pledged to continue negotiating with the council on a settlement to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am deeply committed to ending the homelessness crisis in the city. I\u2019m appreciative of the fact that\u201d the CityFHEPS expansion \u201cis a commitment shared by many New Yorkers, elected officials, and beyond, and also, I\u2019m committed to doing so in a manner that is sustainable for both the medium and the long term,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

Housing policy experts say rental vouchers are effective at lifting people out of poverty. Less than 1% of families who exit New York homeless shelters with a subsidy \u2013 typically a voucher \u2013 re-enter a shelter within one year, according to a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies 2023 report<\/a>. Without subsidies, 15% of families again became homeless.<\/p>\n

For low-income households \u201cthis kind of benefit can really be a lifeline\u201d, said Vincent Reina, a professor in University of Pennsylvania\u2019s department of city and regional planning<\/p>\n

New York, however, has some of the highest housing costs in the country, which means closing the gap between what a person can afford and rent prices requires significant public money, Reina pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean you should not do it, right? But it does mean that there are budgetary implications,\u201d Reina said.<\/p>\n

Quinn believes that the vouchers ultimately save the city money.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is general consensus that ensuring people are housed is more cost effective than shelter-based options in the long run,\u201d Reina said. \u201cThere is also the reality that things can be more cost effective in the long run but you don\u2019t have the budget for it today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vouchers also do not address the primary reason behind high rent: \u201cThere are more people who want to live in the city than there are units,\u201d said Daniel Teles, economist with the Urban Institute. CityFHEPS \u201cshrinks the need\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe voucher program gives people more choice of where they live, so there is a benefit there, but that is a trade-off against trying to use funding to develop more housing,\u201d Teles said.<\/p>\n

Still, Mamdani has focused significant attention on building affordable housing. That effort included presenting Donald Trump with a fake front page<\/a> with the headline \u201cTrump to City: Let\u2019s Build.\u201d Mamdani was trying to secure $21bn in federal grants to build 12,000 affordable housing units in Queens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor is doing flawless work as it relates to negotiating with Donald Trump,\u201d Quinn, who previously served on the city council, said sincerely. \u201cIf he can get us more resources from Washington, all the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Quinn remains disappointed that the mayor decided to appeal the court decision rather than reach a settlement to expand CityFHEPS.<\/p>\n

\u201cParties in the lawsuit and supporters have made clear to the Mamdani administration, \u2018We\u2019re prepared to negotiate,\u2019\u201d Quinn said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Mamdani stated that the administration \u201cinherited a generational fiscal crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Mamdani has made it clear that we need to tax the rich and end the drain so that we can build more affordable housing, keep New Yorkers stably housed and tackle the affordability crisis,\u201d the spokesperson stated. \u201cUnfortunately, the city council speaker<\/a> has yet to join these calls and has not yet put forward a reasonable proposal to expand the CityFHEPS program or make it more efficient. We remain committed to staying at the table, but the speaker\u2019s request that we drop the appeal only makes reaching a settlement harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani also changed how the city treats homeless encampments \u2013 at least initially. During his campaign he criticized the police department\u2019s encampments sweeps and paused that work on his fifth day in office. A month later, he reinstituted the sweeps, but said they would now be led by the Department of Homeless Services staff who would conduct \u201crelentless outreach<\/a> each and every day\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe back-pedalling he did on CityFHEPS was very disappointing. The back-pedaling he did on encampment sweeps was very disappointing,\u201d said David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless. \u201cWe will continue to push him to do what we believe is the right thing: to help homeless and at-risk New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s decision to appeal a court order that the city must expand its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-186427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}