Housing voucher expansion will bust the city budget |
New York City’s fiscal year starts on July 1, Wednesday, and Mayor Mamdani must continue to resist the City Council’s desire to expand CityFHEPS housing vouchers. It’s a fine program, but expanding it is just too expensive.
The Council had passed the significant ballooning of the program in 2023 but it has never been implemented as successive administrations have pointed out the obvious: it’s an unsustainable added cost with dubious benefit.
Even Mamdani, who had campaigned on the idea of dropping his predecessor’s lawsuit and opposition, has come around and is holding firm as the Council insists on some $300 million in additional costs a year. Still, the question isn’t so much about whether the city could, scrounging around, find some more money right now; it probably could, whether by cutting elsewhere or raiding........