City's Rent Subsidy Program Continues Temporarily

A panel of appellate division judges has ordered the city to continue to pay the rents of 15,000 households receiving a housing subsidy through a program aimed at helping previously homeless families get on their feet.

In March, the Department of Homeless Services announced it would stop honoring the Advantage housing subsidy because the state had cut its share of funding for the program.

Legal Aid sued on behalf of the households — mostly families with children — and asked for a preliminary injunction that would require rents to be paid until the case was resolved. A lower court judge denied that order, but the appellate division has granted it temporarily until September, but the case could be resolved before then. 

"We have a tenant who moved out of shelter into an apartment that the tenant could not afford," said attorney Debra Dandeneau of the firm, Weil Gotshal & Manges.

"We have landlords who agreed to rent apartments to tenants who were not otherwise capable of paying those rents. And all of those parties relied upon the city's promise and commitment to continue making Advantage payments."

The households receiving the subsidy had previously lived in city shelters and moved to private apartments with the help of a rent subsidy for up to two years. Attorneys representing households say the city has a contractual obligation to keep paying rents.

The city says it can no longer afford the program.

"At a time when the city is already forced to make major cuts due to the state budget, we will now have to shoulder a new bill of $15 million each month that we simply cannot afford,"  Homeless Service Commissioner Seth Diamond said in a written statement.