While lawmakers are still hammering out the details, the latest state budget is likely to include $50 million to create the long-sought Housing Access Voucher Program, which would help people experiencing or at risk of homelessness afford rent.
Tenant organizers with the Housing Justice for All Coalition rallying at the Capitol building in 2024. The Housing Access Voucher Program has been a priority for advocates for the last several years. (Chris Janaro/City Limits)
A state budget deal is near, and it’s expected to include money to kickstart a long-sought rental voucher program—though with less funding than supporters hoped for.
More than three weeks after their budget deadline, state lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday announced they’d reached an agreement on New York’s next spending plan.
And while details are still being hammered out, it’s likely to include $50 million to establish the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP), a rental subsidy for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, City & State first reported.
Modeled off the federal Section 8 housing voucher, both tenant and landlord groups have embraced the HAVP proposal as a means to address rising homelessness amid a statewide housing shortage.
“If we get this done, it’ll be a very big victory for tenants and for anyone who cares about the stability of our housing stock, for property owners who want to do the right thing and house people who might otherwise struggle to pay their rent, for communities where they know that people are losing their homes,” said State Sen. Brian Kavanagh, who co-sponsored a bill to create HAVP each legislative session for the last five years.
Gov. Hochul had long resisted the proposal, and previously cited concerns about costs, something she reiterated in an exchange with reporters earlier this week.
“This is something that we’re looking to initiate for the first time here, moderating the cost and keeping an eye on the program because this has potential to escalate a great deal,” Hochul said. “But it’s something I thought was important, the leaders of the Legislature thought was important.”
The $50 million price tag currently on the table is far less than the $250 million a year that the State Senate and Assembly called for in their own budget proposals.
“It really should have been more. [But] I’m glad we have our foot in the door to establish a program. So that’s exciting after years of advocacy,” Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, the bill’s other sponsor, told City Limits.
“It does need to be funded at a much higher rate, so we’re going to keep fighting for that,” she added. “When all the federal cuts come down to Section 8 and all sorts of other housing help, you know we will need HAVP more than ever.”
Kavanagh said $50 million could “get a pretty substantial program going,” and provide roughly 4,000 households with vouchers for a year.
“How the numbers play out is something we’re still working out,” he said. “But again, what has happened this week is—this is the first time in the five years we’ve been having this conversation that a governor has publicly said that she supports spending money on this purpose, and I think that is a big step forward.”
The Legislature still has to print and vote on the final budget bills, and things are in flux. Lawmakers are negotiating how much capital money to allocate for housing construction and preservation, maintenance at NYCHA and Mitchell-Lama developments, and for programs to support tenants and homeowners, according to Kavanagh, who chairs the Senate’s Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development.
“Those conversations are still happening,” he said Wednesday.
“It is a difficult time with what’s going on at the federal level, within the economy,” he added, “but this budget stands to be very good budget from the perspective of housing, if we get HAVP done, if we get these capital programs properly funded.”
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