New York State passed a $220 billion budget last week, but housing advocates expressed alarm that lawmakers have allocated too few resources to the pressing issues of affordable housing or homelessness.

The budget does include necessary funding for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program and for public housing, however, the  Hochul Administration scuttled efforts to fund and create the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP), legislation that would thwart evictions and combat New York’s burgeoning homelessness crisis.

“Our clients and other struggling tenants throughout the state need and deserve long-term, common-sense solutions, and the HAVP, along with “Good Cause” eviction protections, would achieve that goal,” reads a statement from Legal Aid.

Legal Aid will continue work with lawmakers post-budget to pass these necessary measures, and ensure that 421-a, the decades-long boondoggle and handout to the real estate industry, finally sunsets, affording New York City the opportunity to re-allocate the resulting savings to proven and already existing housing programs such as CityFHEPS.