New York makes an unexpected promise to its citizens: Its law mandates that the state has “provide aid, treatment, and support for the needy.”
But for at least the third time in almost 40 years, the state is being sued for failing to live up to this devotion by putting impoverished families at risk of poverty.
New York is failing, according to a new lawsuit filed last month, for the same reason it has failed in the past: The happiness income it provides for cover, known as a shelter income, doesn’t even come close to the value of the country’s prices, which are among the highest in the country. Both the Legal Aid Society and the Empire Justice Center, two nonprofit organizations, demand that the state increase the income and provide sufficient financial support to keep families and individuals afloat.
” I don’t want to nap in the street. I’m not interested in going to the shelter, according to 54-year-old Minerva Pacumio, a claimant in the complaint who is evicted. I don’t want to reduce anything, I promise.
New York’s house income doesn’t cover hire for reasonable private enclosure anywhere in the state, according to the lawsuit and an independent analysis performed by New York Focus and ProPublica. Since 2003, the express hasn’t raised the family’s monthly income in New York City from$ 450 for a family of four. And since 1988, the amount for adult-only households has little recovered.
Pacumio receives a$ 250 monthly allowance to cover the one-bedroom apartment she rents in Queens for$ 1, 900. Pacumio takes care of her two adult sons, one of whom is impaired, five days a week. The another, according to Pacumio, has mental health issues and has struggled to find employment.
Pacumio said she owes dozens in returning book.
There is a reasonable argument that you are not even really trying to meet your legal obligations to provide support and attention to the needy in New York State, according to Pavita Krishnaswamy, a supervising attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Civil Practice Law Reform Unit.
People are forced to adopt an emergency shelter system because of the lack of funding, according to New York Focus and ProPublica next year, which don’t meet the demand for rising poverty. Nearly half of the government’s unhoused families and people outside of New York City are confined to hotels with little assistance in order to get them back to permanent housing. The condition often pays more to set people up in a hotel than it would have cost to cover rent for reasonable housing, the news organizations found.
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The Temporary and Disability Assistance Agency, which determines house accommodations, has responded to previous requests for an increase by saying the Legislature would need to allocate more money to the state funds. In the upcoming times, it is already anticipated that the funds will have multibillion dollar deficits.
Over the past many legislative sessions, state lawmakers sponsored bills that would have pinned the income to fair market rent, the federal government’s estimate of how much it costs to hire respectable private accommodation. Those bills have repeatedly failed, and their supporters claim that without the governor’s support, little will change.
The governor” controls” the budget process, as any governor of New York state does. We can’t just fund things that the governor would not agree to”, said Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, a Democrat who chairs the housing committee and repeatedly sponsored the failed legislation in the state Assembly.
The governor’s office Democratic presidential candidate Kathy Hochul did not respond to numerous written and comment requests. An Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance spokesperson did not respond to questions from New York Focus and ProPublica about whether the agency had ever requested additional funding for shelter allowances. He cited the pending litigation and declined to comment on this story.
The state has argued in prior litigation that the constitution doesn’t mandate that it meet all the needs of the poor.
A” Kafka-esque Situation”
This is well-known ground for Legal Aid. This is at least the fourth lawsuit it has brought against the state, alleging that New York has not provided enough welfare assistance for rent. In the late ‘ 80s, the nonprofit filed a landmark case on behalf of Barbara Jiggetts, a single mother of three who was renting an apartment in Queens. Giggettins was making about 70 % of her monthly owing, or$ 270 per month, to help pay her$ 381 in rent. Legal Aid claimed that the state had gotten away from its legal obligations to keep her and her children safe.
In the Jiggetts case, the court ordered the state to temporarily cover rent for New York City families with children facing eviction until the establishment of” a lawful” shelter allowance that would keep them housed together.
However, the state waited until 2003 before extending the shelter allowance, going five years over the original deadline.
In order to bridge the gap between the allowance and rent, the state has also established a permanent supplement. But the supplement offered in the city is only available to families with children. She lost the supplement, which made up the majority of her housing assistance when Pacumio’s youngest child turned 18 years old. The Empire Justice Center notes that the supplement is optional outside of New York City and that only 15 of 57 counties choose to offer it to families with children.
The new lawsuit seeks either an increase in the shelter allowance or a mandatory expansion of the supplement statewide, regardless of household composition— or both.
The Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has reviewed the allowance four times since 2003, as required, every five years. More than 100 comments were received during its most recent review in 2023, many of which demanded that the agency increase the benefit. Some shared personal stories from unhoused New Yorkers who said the shelter allowances weren’t enough to prevent homelessness, according to the state register.
Pleas also came from the counties themselves. There wasn’t even a single habitable apartment for rent that would be covered by the shelter allowance, according to Michael Iapoce, the social services commissioner for Ulster County, at the time.
” The shelter allowance is totally irrational and arbitrary”, he said. There is no justification to keep the shelter allowance and supplements so low, they say. His opinions on the rules were included as an evidence in the lawsuit.
As it stands, people poor enough to qualify for public assistance and looking for a place to rent find themselves in a” cruel Dickensian or Kafka-esque situation”, said Susan Antos, the managing attorney for public benefits at Empire Justice Center. Although the shelter allowance is too low to allow them to afford even a modest home, according to the regulations, recipients may have their benefits cut if they stop looking.
It’s difficult to speculate as to how much it would cost to raise the shelter allowance because of how rapidly changing caseloads for public assistance may evolve, according to state senator Brian Kavanagh, the Democratic chairman of the Senate’s housing committee. As of June 2025, the most recent month for which figures are available, nearly three-quarters of a million people were receiving public assistance.
One of the recipients is Kimberly Maldonado. Since she was 22 years old, she has resided in the same rent-stabilized apartment in Brooklyn. Now 55 and living alone, she said that she was forced to stop working in June of last year because of ongoing health issues and relies on her daughter to cover her rent. Maldonado receives no other financial aid from the state, and she only receives$ 215 per month to pay$ 1,114 in rent.
According to Maldonado, a plaintiff in the new lawsuit, she fears that the state will never provide the financial assistance New Yorkers in need.
” As long as people are quiet and we don’t try to speak up and get help and get them to change the laws, the rules, or whatever it may be, we’re never going to get help, we’re never going to get nothing changed”.
The article Housing Allowances for Needy Residents in New York Haven’t Increased in Decades. That is unlawful, according to a lawsuit. appeared first on ProPublica.
