During the 2025 mayoral race, candidate Zohran Mamdani publicly said the city's court challenge to expanding CityFHEPS — its largest rental voucher program — should be dropped, and that he would implement the City Council's 2023 expansion laws.
According to coverage at the time, including from Coalition for the Homeless and THE CITY, Mamdani made that position public during his campaign and reiterated it in the weeks following his November 2025 election.
In February 2026, his administration signaled it would not, in fact, drop the appeal.
On March 24, 2026, the Mamdani administration formally filed an appeal to the New York State Court of Appeals — continuing the legal battle that the Adams administration had begun three years earlier against the voucher expansion.
The reversal generated sharp criticism from housing advocates who had backed Mamdani's candidacy, complicated his coalition heading into the fiscal year 2027 budget cycle, and reopened a question that defines a meaningful piece of NYC's homelessness policy: whether the city expands a $1.2 billion voucher program at the scale the 2023 laws describe, or finds a different path to reducing shelter populations.
How the program works
CityFHEPS — formally, the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement — is one of the largest rental voucher programs in the United States. Currently, the program serves approximately 68,000 households. Tenants pay 30 percent of their income toward rent; the city covers the remainder.
The program is administered by the NYC Department of Social Services. According to DSS data cited by THE CITY in May 2026 coverage, the program is budgeted at approximately $1.78 billion in the current fiscal year, with $1.1 billion already spent through January.
What the 2023 expansion laws would do
The City Council in 2023 passed a package of laws expanding CityFHEPS eligibility. The specific changes:
— Raising the income threshold from approximately 200 percent of the federal poverty line to 50 percent of Area Median Income (approximately $56,700 for an individual and $81,000 for a family of four, per coverage in THE CITY).
— Extending eligibility to people facing eviction — before they enter the shelter system.
— Eliminating the requirement that an applicant first spend 90 days in a shelter before becoming eligible for the voucher.
— Removing or modifying the work requirement that had limited shelter residents' access.
According to projections cited by Gothamist and other coverage, full implementation of the 2023 laws would raise the program's annual cost to a projected $4.7 billion by 2030. The Mamdani administration has used a similar figure to characterize the fiscal impact and has cited approximately $4 billion in additional costs "in the next few years alone" if the appeal were dropped. The projection assumes full take-up of expanded eligibility; actual costs would depend on enrollment rates that are not yet observable.
The Adams administration declined to implement the laws after they passed, arguing the city did not have the budget. The Legal Aid Society sued, with the City Council joining the suit. A state Supreme Court judge sided with the advocates and lawmakers. The Adams administration appealed. The Mamdani administration, after taking office, continued that appeal.
The fiscal context the administration cites
The Mamdani administration's stated reason for continuing the appeal is fiscal. The city was facing budget gaps that the city and state Comptrollers separately measured at more than $12 billion across two fiscal years when Mamdani took office. The May 12 executive budget closed those gaps through a combination of state aid, agency savings, and new revenue measures.
Mayor Mamdani has publicly explained the appeal in those terms. At a press conference cited by Skybriz: "If the city were to drop its appeal, we are speaking about an expansion that would then cost over $4 billion in the next few years alone. I am deeply committed to ending the homelessness crisis in the city."
According to the administration's press secretary, Joe Calvello, quoted in Gothamist's March 24 coverage: "This is not the end of negotiations. As the budget process advances, we will continue working toward a resolution while advancing a comprehensive, whole-of-government response to the city's housing and homelessness crisis."
The Citizens Budget Commission, an independent fiscal watchdog, has urged the administration against expanding the program in its current form. At a March 17 Council budget hearing, CBC Vice President Ana Champeny said: "While the CityFHEPS rental housing voucher program is an important component to a comprehensive housing affordability strategy, it is on an unsustainable trajectory."
What the advocates say
Housing organizations that supported the 2023 expansion — and that backed Mamdani's candidacy — have publicly characterized the appeal as a reversal of his stated commitments.
Christine Quinn, president of the supportive housing provider Win, said in coverage by 6sqft and Amsterdam News: "The city's failure to settle its challenge to codified CityFHEPS expansions is nothing short of a betrayal. Mamdani promised time and time again to drop this suit. This blunt reversal of that commitment is an abject failure when it comes to meeting the most basic needs of homeless families — the very population these vouchers are meant to serve."
What the administration says it is doing instead
The administration has framed its CityFHEPS approach as cost containment and operational improvement rather than reduction or stagnation. Several specific changes are reflected in the May 12 executive budget:
— New management protocols, including checks against state rent data, reviews of rent reasonableness, and reductions in broker fees, per Budget Director Sherif Soliman.
— Continued voucher issuance at current rates. According to Mamdani's May 12 statement, the administration is not creating wait lists and has explicitly stated voucher funding will not be cut.
— Continued funding at approximately the current $1.78 billion level.
The administration position, in short, is that the program continues and is being managed for efficiency, while the expansion that would more than double its cost remains paused pending legal resolution.
What more advocates have said
Dave Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said in a March statement cited by Coalition for the Homeless's own coverage: "It's dismaying to see Mayor Mamdani backtrack on his promise to expand the CityFHEPs program, which would enable more low-income New Yorkers to leave shelters and find permanent housing."
Alison Wilkey, director of government affairs at Coalition for the Homeless, said in THE CITY's coverage: "If we hadn't had CityFHEPS, then we would have far more than 100,000 people in shelters at this moment. The city is left with a moral choice here of, do we invest in CityFHEPS to house people and make sure that our people, our residents have a home? Or do we leave people in homelessness?"
The Legal Aid Society, which originally filed the suit on behalf of homeless New Yorkers, has continued to argue that the City Council had statutory authority to pass the expansion laws and that the city is obligated to implement them.
The legal posture
The state Court of Appeals, where the Mamdani administration filed the March 24 appeal, has not yet decided whether to hear the case. The timing of that decision is not predictable.
According to coverage from THE CITY, City Limits, and 6sqft, negotiations between the administration and the City Council are continuing in parallel with the litigation. Both sides have indicated they remain open to a negotiated settlement that would expand the program in a fiscally constrained form, though no agreement has been announced.
Council Speaker Julie Menin, speaking publicly about the situation: "We are ready, willing and able to settle the issue around FHEPS, both for the current court case as well as for future expansion."
The path forward is undetermined. The legal challenge proceeds. The budget negotiations proceed. The 2023 expansion laws remain in legal limbo, with their implementation depending on the outcome of either the Court of Appeals or a settlement.
What this means for current voucher holders and applicants
For New Yorkers currently holding a CityFHEPS voucher, the appeal does not affect existing arrangements. Current vouchers continue. Renewals continue.
For New Yorkers who would have become newly eligible under the 2023 expansion laws — including people in shelter who do not meet the current 200 percent of federal poverty line criterion, or people facing eviction outside the shelter system — eligibility expansion remains paused pending the legal outcome.
For New Yorkers in shelter currently, the voucher access route remains as it was prior to the 2023 laws: shelter residents who meet existing eligibility criteria may apply for a voucher; those who do not meet existing criteria currently cannot.
For New Yorkers facing imminent eviction outside the shelter system, the path remains as it was prior to the 2023 laws: emergency rent arrears assistance, anti-eviction legal services, and one-shot deals through the Human Resources Administration remain available; voucher eligibility before shelter entry remains paused.
The state has separately created the Housing Access Voucher Program, with $50 million in first-year funding announced in the FY26 state budget. The state program is much smaller than what the CityFHEPS expansion would provide and currently locks out tenants whose federal Emergency Housing Vouchers are expiring.
The longer arc
The CityFHEPS appeal is one front in a broader, multi-year dispute over how the city responds to its shelter population — currently over 100,000 people on any given night. The pre-Mamdani administration's position was that the city could not afford the expansion. The Mamdani administration, after initially indicating it would reverse that position, has effectively adopted the same fiscal argument while characterizing its approach as a search for a "sustainable" settlement.
The Council's position is that the 2023 laws are legally binding. The advocate position is that the city should fund the expansion regardless of the fiscal constraints. The administration's position is that a fiscally sustainable settlement is achievable through negotiation.
The Court of Appeals will, in the coming months, make its decision about whether to hear the case. The budget negotiations between the administration and the Council will, in the coming weeks, determine how much fiscal flexibility either side has. The outcome — whether CityFHEPS expands, contracts, or remains essentially as it is — affects what the city's homelessness policy will look like through the rest of the Mamdani administration.
The position taken during the 2025 campaign and the position taken in March 2026 reflect different fiscal contexts. The appeal continues.
Sources: THE CITY, "Candidate Mamdani Backed Expanding Housing Vouchers. As Mayor, He's Appealing a Court Order To Do So." (March 24, 2026); THE CITY, "This Voucher Is Supposed to Help Homeless New Yorkers Leave Shelters. A Majority Don't Qualify." (May 5, 2026); Gothamist, "Mamdani fights rental assistance expansion, continuing Adams' clash with NYC Council" (March 24, 2026); The Real Deal, "Mamdani makes campaign promise about-face, appeals housing voucher expansion" (March 25, 2026); 6sqft, "Mamdani appeals housing voucher expansion, breaking campaign pledge" (March 26, 2026); Coalition for the Homeless statement (March 2026); Amsterdam News, "NYC housing activists press Mamdani expand CityFHEPS program" (April 30, 2026); City Limits coverage; Skybriz analysis (April 4, 2026); NYC Mayor's Office FY 2027 Executive Budget press release (May 12, 2026); statements from Christine Quinn (Win), Dave Giffen (Coalition for the Homeless), Alison Wilkey (Coalition for the Homeless), Speaker Julie Menin, and Sherif Soliman as quoted in the cited coverage; Ana Champeny (Citizens Budget Commission) statement at the March 17 Council budget hearing.
