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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll talk now about the New York City Council's push to expand access to housing vouchers, how it relates to the migrant crisis and Mayor Adams' expected to veto of this new bill. Yesterday, the council approved a package of bills that expands eligibility for an important voucher program CityFHEPS. One key change is the elimination of a 90-day waiting period for voucher recipients moving from homeless shelters into permanent housing. An assessment by the advocacy group Women in Need led by former City Council speaker and recent guest on the show, Christine Quinn found that by simply eliminating that 90-day waiting period, New York City could save more than $27,000 per family.

Citing costs to the city and a low vacancy rate, Mayor Adams has signaled he'll issue a rare veto here, though the council could override such a move. Joining me now to talk about what's in this new legislation and the implications for recent migrants to the city as well as people here long-term is Diana Ayala, Council Member and Deputy speaker representing parts of the South Bronx and Upper Manhattan. This is District 8, El Barrio/East Harlem, Mott Haven, Highbridge, Concourse, Longwood, Port Morris. Hi, deputy speaker. Welcome back to WNYC.

Diana Ayala: Thank you. Good morning. So nice to be back.

Brian Lehrer: Good to have you. The package of bills that City Council passed yesterday, I'm seeing includes a number of changes. Maybe we'll go through a few of them point by point starting with a 90-day waiting period. What's the rule as it stands now and is currently applied and why do you think it was important to eliminate that rule?

Diana Ayala: I think that the overall messaging for all of the bills, the intent of the council was really to facilitate faster processing while creating a mechanism that prevented further growth to the existing shelter system, which is already overpopulated, seriously overpopulated. That's not even counting asylum-seeking families that are coming in as well. The 90-day rule basically is a rule that states that you have to be in shelter for 90 days before anyone will speak with you about whether or not you're eligible for CityFHEPS vouchers.

What we're saying is that we're in the midst of one of the worst housing crises of our time and that the response should be to try to do everything and use the existing resources that we have at our disposal to try to move families that qualify out of shelter as quickly as possible. This is a way to do that. There's no need to wait 90 days. We can start doing this as early as day one.

Brian Lehrer: I'll ask you in a minute why you think Mayor Adams intends to veto this bill or this package of bills. Let's keep going point by point for a little bit. Another piece of the package removes a certain set of criteria used to determine eligibility for CityFHEPS vouchers. If these bills become law, who would become eligible? Who isn't currently?

Diana Ayala: First of all, I want to clarify because I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions, and a little bit of fear-mongering is going on, is that we're opening up a process that's going to be overflowed with all of these people that are going to make themselves poor in order to qualify, are not going to purposely not pay rent in order to qualify. You have to be below the 50% of AMI so not everybody's going to qualify. There are income selections that--

Brian Lehrer: What is that? For example, if you're citing an income requirement, what is that in your district, for example, 50% of AMI?

Diana Ayala: Usually, ideally for people that are receiving CityFHEPS vouchers, they are people who are making minimum wage, people that are still on public assistance, so on the very low-income brackets. Even people that are in the shelter system now, don't all qualify. We have folks that are working that are making a little bit too much. I think that the mayor's pushback is really-- I think, listen, all of this boils down to poverty shaming. We have folks that have been stuck in our shelter system for years. We're basically warehousing human beings at this point.

We have a huge asylum issue that is impacting the city's budget, that is giving the administration a run for their money in terms of trying to find spaces and places to house families every day. I think that this is a way. What we're saying is like, "Look, we have tools at our disposal. Let's deal with both of these issues simultaneously because if we're able to move out the people that we have the ability to move out at a faster rate, then we can right size."

Then we can make space for all of those asylum seekers that are going to be with us long-term that need special services because right now we're housing them in hotels that cost us three times the amount of money that even a voucher will cost. I think that this is actually a cost-saving to the city. I don't think that, again, people don't wake up and decide that they're going to quit their jobs just to qualify for a voucher. Poverty is a real thing in our communities. If people are applying is simply because they need it.

Brian Lehrer: Another main point is the package includes a bill that would help tenants cover utility bills, gas, electricity, heat, hot water. Listeners, we can take some phone calls on the push to expand access and eligibility for city housing vouchers. As we've been saying, City Council approved a package of bills just yesterday that, if signed by Mayor Adams or if overridden by the Council if he vetoes it, would achieve that. Shelter providers and advocacy organizations like the Legal Aid Society say these bills will help get individuals and families out of the shelter system and into long-term housing on a speedier timeline.

Listeners, does this apply to any of you out there right now? Have you been in the shelter system? Are you waiting for a CityFHEPS voucher? If so, what would it mean to not have to wait 90 days in a shelter before moving into housing or to having the revised eligibility criteria that the deputy speaker of the New York City Council, our guest, Diana Ayala, has been laying out? 212-433-WNYC or anyone else with a question, 212-433-9692.

Let's move on to Mayor Adam's opposition. A spokesperson for the mayor says these bills will cost the city $17 billion just over the next five years, which is meaningful percentage of the city budget. Do you know where his team gets the number, and if you accept its accuracy, do you believe it's a cost worth bearing?

Diana Ayala: It was $7 million just last week, so I don't know where the $17 million is coming from. We still feel like the number is somewhat inflated. Again, this is going to cost us some money. At the end of the day in the long-term, is going to be cost savings because, again, we are forgetting what the actual cost of housing a family in shelter is. It is super expensive. If we're talking about using hotels to shelter families, that's even more expensive. We'd be saving the city money. Even the 90-day rule, why would you want to pay for 90 additional days in shelter when you can eliminate that cost by trying to work with a family from the moment that they make contact with the agency and move them out as quickly as possible?

Brian Lehrer: Why do they? Do you understand the rationale that exists for 90 days?

Diana Ayala: Yes. It's poverty shaming. It comes from the idea that people will make themselves purposely homeless in order to qualify for these services.

Brian Lehrer: For the vouchers.

Diana Ayala: I will tell you, Brian, I was on the receiving end of these programs when I was on public assistance and on the verge of homelessness, and I was able to tap into what was then the [unintelligible 00:08:46] program was our FHEPS program. That voucher program, if I didn't need it, I wouldn't have benefited from it as much as I did. It allowed me to be able to go to school and become self-sufficient, and not have to worry about having a roof over my head. The idea that people, purposefully, again, are making themselves poor enough to qualify or getting themselves somehow evicted in order to qualify, I think it's insulting to all of the families that we represent.

I've seen the administration work really hard, and I want to give them credit because I know that the challenges that they're facing today they're unprecedented. Their team works really hard to try to comply with the law, the right to shelter laws, which is becoming exceedingly more difficult. That's why I think that we need to use every tool in the toolbox to help move out those families that we can move out because we can't move out asylum-seeking families. They don't qualify for vouchers, they don't qualify for a lot of these government programs that would allow them to leave the shelter today. We need to be mindful of that.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned the Right to Shelter Law. We just did a segment with Christine Quinn and Bob Hayes yesterday on the mayor's interest in suspending the Right to Shelter Law because of so many asylum seekers coming in all at once. I'm curious if this package of bills that you passed in the City Council yesterday directly addresses the arrival of so many asylum seekers. I think months ago there was a sense that the shelter system was already stretched to its limits as more and more people arrived in need of a bed and now it's happening even more and even more. I think these bills are aimed at the more pre-migrant structural issues-

Diana Ayala: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: -for the homelessness that already existed in the city. Is there any relationship between the two?

Diana Ayala: That's right. No. The only relationship is that we're hoping that we're able to want to avoid family from going into shelter, to begin with, by expanding eligibility and move families that are already in the system faster by eliminating the 90-day rule. That we'll be able to make space for asylum-seeking families because that number is continuing to grow really rapidly and we are not able to really meet the demands at this point. That's the intent of it. That's how they would benefit.

Brian Lehrer: Connie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Connie.

Connie: Hi. Good morning. I'm just calling in for a comment more than anything. I'm a military veteran. I'm currently in shelter. I have been in shelter for quite a while now. I do have a voucher already, but the situation with the landlords just taking pure advantage of what they can do to take these vouchers I think is very extreme. It's been impossible to find an apartment that I can't even afford with the voucher. My portion that I have to pay for the voucher is so much that I tend to not be-- When I did have an apartment previously, I wasn't able to afford utilities, which was not just lights and gas, it was electricity, heat, and gas.

The landlords are increasing the rent so much that they max out whatever you can receive from the voucher, and then whatever your portion is, you're still not able to survive. Now I'm in the shelter and the shelter is definitely pressing and almost forcing you to just choose any apartment that you find and take it. The fear is how am I going to afford the utilities? Am I then going to be evicted because I can only cover a portion of the rent?

Brian Lehrer: Deputy speaker, want to talk to Connie?

Diana Ayala: Yes. I think that that's why Council Member Caban's bill on eliminating the utilities' rate from the actual voucher helps ensure that we're not devaluing the voucher. That should be helpful, but we have other problems. The caller is absolutely right. We have discrimination issues that we have not adequately addressed. The City Council pushed for the Office of Income Discrimination to fight back against this type of discriminatory action from landlords that are denying potential renters an apartment because they have a voucher. There's a history to that. We can go on and on for days on why that is, but the CCHR is responsible for fully staffing that office.

Up to last year, they only had two staffers. They hadn't really initiated any action against landlords, which is an extremely important part of this whole process. We're also seeing vouchers that are not being processed or paid in time because we have staffing shortages. That's an issue that the administration should be addressing with a sense of urgency because these are safety net programs that keep families afloat. We cannot afford to continue to delay until someone applies. Right now we have shortages at the hospital and we are able to import nurses from elsewhere to meet that need temporarily.

Why are we not exhausting every possibility to ensure that we're doing the same at DSS to ensure that families are being processed quickly, that landlords are being paid on time so then they're not using that as a reason for denying folks those apartments? I also want to add that one of the issues that came up was the lack of apartments for folks that have vouchers. Well, we have over 40,000 plus apartments, rent-stabilized apartments in the city of New York that have been registered as vacant. We should also be working with those landlords and trying to identify them to figure out how we get families into those apartments as well as working with landlords of buildings that have been warehoused for generations.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I'm going to go to another caller, actually. Here's Aye in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Thanks for calling in. Hi there.

Aye: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to, I guess, agree with your guest about the poverty shaming that goes into the 90-day rule because it really does feel that way. Then I also wondered if she might speak a little bit as to if this legislation goes through, whether it's going to impact people that are maybe not necessarily fitting the family criteria because I myself have been homeless for over a year now from a vacate order that my landlord basically allowed my apartment to get to such a hazardous extent that when I called in violations, the city issued a vacate. Now my health is really bad and my [crosstalk] home situation is very tenuous. Thank you.

I got in contact with Home Base and I was told that I would be eligible for services, but got to the end of the approval process and then was told that, number one, because I was vacated and not evicted, even though I'm in the same situation and it's not my fault, it doesn't matter. They're only working with eviction cases. The landlord finds a loophole and puts me in the same situation. Also, because I'm single and I don't have a family, I'm not deserving of any help basically. I'm just wondering about the people that fall through the loopholes, through the cracks, if this legislation does anything to help folks like that.

Diana Ayala: It does. It does. It's intended to help facilitate the processing of vouchers for families and singles, which was really an important part of this because I think at some point, there was an argument made by the administration that they would be able to waive the 90-day rule specifically for families and not singles. We have a lot of folks that are stuck in the system that have no children. We have a lot of folks that are older adults that are also getting evicted that are in the shelter system. I think that your story is a testament of why we need to be thinking as creatively as possible to include subsidy into housing.

When we talk about affordable housing, the affordable housing lottery units that we're seeing are really geared towards individuals that are working and maybe making maybe minimum wage up to $27,000, $30,000 a year, which we need because we lost a lot of those units to destabilization. We also have a large percentage of New Yorkers that are living below the poverty rate that need some subsidized housing to stay afloat. With the elimination of section eight vouchers, the additional section eight vouchers, and then the crisis that we're facing at NYCHA, that left those families with no other alternative. The idea is that this will serve both.

Brian Lehrer: Good luck to you, Aye. Thank you for calling in. One follow-up and then we're out of time. The spokesperson for Mayor Adams also said that your bill would force the creation of a waiting list for vouchers. We noticed that Shams DaBaron, the advocate for the unhoused who's perhaps better known as the homeless hero, he is been on the show, said something similar on New York 1. That more vouchers would lead to more competition in a strained housing market. What would you say to the homeless hero as well as Mayor Adams in response to that concern?

Diana Ayala: Well, according to the SS, the number of people that are in court now that would qualify for vouchers is very minimal. That should not be an impact. People that are in shelter still have rights to first priority to these vouchers because their situation is pretty dire. What we're saying is if a family is about to be evicted and they would qualify for the voucher if they were in shelter, why make them go through all that process when we can just keep them in place?

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there. We will see if Mayor Adam signs or vetoes, and if he does veto, if the council has the numbers-- Actually, maybe you know already. How many of the 51 council members voted for this package of bills and by implication, do you have the vote still--

Diana Ayala: 41.

Brian Lehrer: 41 of 51 would override if everybody hangs together.

Diana Ayala: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: It looks like this is likely to become law. Diana Ayala, council member and deputy speaker, her own district, parts of the South Bronx and Upper Manhattan, District 8, thank you for coming on and talking about-

Diana Ayala: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: -this new bill.

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