Picture credit score: New York Immigration Coalition/ Murad Awawdeh
Two immigrant advocacy teams in New York on Thursday strongly condemned as “a devastating blow” to Caribbean and different immigrants and low-income households a Manhattan Supreme Courtroom resolution placing down a lawsuit that will have compelled the Eric Adams administration and the Division of Homeless Companies (DHS) to implement the CityFHEPS housing voucher bundle that was handed in Could 2023 by the Metropolis Council.
The Metropolis Preventing Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Complement (CityFHEPS) program is an area housing voucher for New Yorkers on the point of or experiencing homelessness.
On Thursday, Manhattan Supreme Courtroom Choose Lyle Frank struck down the laws to broaden eligibility for CityFHEPS housing vouchers for low-income New Yorkers going through eviction or homelessness.
“Too many New Yorkers are struggling to maintain a roof over their heads as housing prices proceed to rise. This enlargement of CityFHEPS vouchers would have been a lifeline to weak households caught within the shelter system and liable to eviction,” Murad Awawdeh, president and chief govt officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella immigrant advocacy group in New York State of over 200 immigrant group, informed Caribbean Life.
“By increasing alternatives to dwell in protected, secure housing, we construct a metropolis the place New Yorkers can put down roots to speculate and develop of their communities,” he added. “This courtroom resolution is a devastating blow to low-income households, and any of us who could fall on exhausting instances sooner or later.
“We stand with the Metropolis Council in interesting this resolution, and implore the mayor to start out implementing actual options to the issues confronted by so many New Yorkers,” Awawdeh continued.
Jennifer Hernandez, lead organizer at Make the Street NY, one other immigrant advocacy group, mentioned: “At a time when New York Metropolis is going through an unprecedented affordability disaster and working-class communities of coloration are struggling to pay ever-increasing rents, it’s outrageous that Mayor Adams would proceed to face in the best way of commonsense modifications to this system that would have been a lifeline for a lot of tenants in eviction processes.
“As an alternative of combating towards the pursuits of low-income New Yorkers, the mayor ought to spend his time and vitality ensuring that everybody on this metropolis has protected, secure and reasonably priced housing,” she mentioned.
Rendy Desamours, a spokesperson for the Metropolis Council, confirmed on Thursday that the Council will enchantment the courtroom’s resolution.
“We disagree with the courtroom’s ruling and will probably be pursuing a right away enchantment,” Desamours mentioned. “It’s unlucky that Mayor Adams’ administration has fought to delay assist to New Yorkers that may forestall them from evictions and homelessness amidst a housing disaster.”
The mayor mentioned that whereas he’s glad that the courtroom agrees along with his administration’s place that these legal guidelines went past the Metropolis Council’s legislative authority, “we’re hopeful that our companions within the Council will be part of us in remaining dedicated to working to attach New Yorkers in want with protected, reasonably priced, everlasting housing.”
In February, the non-profit Authorized Support Society had filed a category motion lawsuit in New York State Supreme Courtroom towards Mayor Adams and town to compel the administration to completely implement the just lately enacted bundle of laws that reforms and expands CityFHEPS.
The Authorized Support Society mentioned the lawsuit was filed on behalf of New Yorkers who could be eligible for CityFHEPS underneath the brand new legal guidelines however who’re barred from accessing the hire subsidy as a result of the Adams administration has “refused to implement the reforms.”
On Thursday, Robert Desir, a lawyer on the Society, mentioned that Choose Frank’s ruling “will price town hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on shelter prices”, agreeing that the choice can even have “a devastating influence on hundreds of New Yorkers on the point of eviction or already experiencing homelessness.”
