City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is set to grant herself the power Thursday to take legal action against Mayor Adams’ administration over its refusal to implement a set of new housing voucher laws — a procedural step that carries outsize weight amid a tense relationship between the two top politicians.
The laws, which the Council enacted on its own last summer by overriding the mayor’s veto of them, aim to greatly expand access to CityFHEPS, a voucher program that subsidizes rent for low-income New Yorkers on open market apartments.
Despite the override, the mayor didn’t implement the laws by the legally mandated Jan. 9 deadline, arguing the city couldn’t afford to overhaul the program the way the Council wants. That prompted Speaker Adams to threaten her chamber would pursue litigation unless the mayor’s administration took “concrete, verifiable steps to implement these local laws by Feb. 7.”
With the speaker’s cutoff date coming and passing Wednesday without action from the administration, she’s going ahead with legal action, a spokesman for her confirmed to the Daily News.
Before moving the matter into court, though, the Council must vote through a resolution authorizing the speaker to take legal action on behalf of the full chamber. The spokesman said the full Council is expected to take that vote Thursday.
Kayla Mamelak, a spokeswoman for the mayor, did not address the Council legal moves when asked for comment Wednesday.
Instead, she touted some CityFHEPS reforms the administration has enacted on its own, including abolishing a rule that used to require that eligible individuals spend at least 90 days in a homeless shelter before they could apply for a voucher. Mamelak also reiterated the mayor’s argument that the legislation is too expensive at a time that the city’s under fiscal strain from the migrant crisis.
“As New York City taxpayers face billions in ever-growing asylum costs as we continue to manage a national humanitarian crisis, this legislation will add $17 billion onto the backs of our taxpayers,” she said. “Simultaneously, it will make it harder for New Yorkers in shelter to move into permanent housing at a time when there are 10,000 households in shelter that are eligible for CityFHEPS and thousands of asylum seekers continue to arrive in our city every week.”
Council Democrats say the mayor’s $17 billion cost estimate is exaggerated.
The speaker’s spokesman stressed it’s not entirely clear yet what form of legal action the speaker will take. The Legal Aid Society said last month it was planning to sue the administration over the CityFHEPS matter, and the Council could join such an action instead of filing its own.
Among other provisions, the laws would expand CityFHEPS eligibility by eliminating a rule requiring that eligible low-income earners first enter a homeless shelter before they can apply for a voucher.
The legal action comes on the heels of Council Democrats overriding the mayor’s vetoes of two separate bills last month requiring more transparency from the NYPD and banning the use of solitary confinement in city jails. Those overrides came after months of heated debate between the mayor and supporters of the bills.
Bronx Councilwoman Diana Ayala, a Democrat who’s a top sponsor of the CityFHEPS legislation, said it’s disappointing the mayor has feuded so much with the Council lately.
“It’s a shame that it had to become so contentious,” she told The News.
