New York’s leading legal service provides, including The Legal Aid Society, are calling on City Hall to immediately correct the payment issues and delays currently threatening non-profits’ ability to provide critical housing and immigration services to New Yorkers in need.

The Mayor’s State of the City address, delivered earlier today, laid out a robust agenda in which he promised to increase affordability, combat homelessness, and keep all New Yorkers, including new arrivals, safely and stably housed. However, the Mayor failed to mention that these goals are wholly reliant on the support of the City’s nonprofit legal service organizations, who each year provide critical housing and immigration services to thousands of low-income individuals and families.

“If Mayor Adams truly wants to deliver on his promise of improving the lives of New York’s most vulnerable community members in 2025, he must prioritize resolving these longstanding issues to ensure all nonprofits are paid without undue delay for the invaluable services they provide to New Yorkers in need,” reads a statement from the organizations. “Anything short of a decisive, long-term solution will profoundly harm the people and communities we serve.”

“These significant backlogs and delays threaten the ability of nonprofits — particularly smaller organizations — to maintain basic operations such as making payroll and jeopardize New Yorkers’ access to lifesaving legal services,” the statement continues. “Mayor Adams’ silence on this issue today, one that impacts hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, is deafening.