Mayor Mamdani recently reversed a campaign promise by refusing to withdraw the City’s challenge to the duly enacted laws reforming and expanding CityFHEPS, a local housing voucher program. In a new letter to the editor in the New York Daily News, Adriene Holder, Chief Attorney of The Legal Aid Society’s Civil Practice, explains why New Yorkers can’t wait.

“New York City cannot wait for future production to address the immediate loss of housing faced by low-income tenants,” she writes in part. “Proven programs like CityFHEPS exist precisely to bridge that gap, helping households stay housed and preventing avoidable homelessness.”

“While the precise parameters of the CityFHEPS expansion may be subject to negotiation, the urgency of the crisis is not,” she continued. “New Yorkers facing eviction today cannot wait for the resolution of a lengthy appeals process. Every delay means more families losing their homes and more people entering a shelter system.”

“The longer this process drags on, the more low-income New Yorkers in desperate need of housing stability will see that promise pushed further out of reach.”

Read the full letter here.