Mayor Adams is being sued for not complying with the new housing laws

The Legal Aid Society on Wednesday sued Mayor Eric Adams for failing to enforce new laws aimed at addressing rising homelessness and the influx of tens of thousands of migrants.

In the coming days, the City Council is expected to join the association, after voting last week to approve a lawsuit.

The move comes as a homelessness crisis overwhelms shelters and the city's budget and tensions grow between Mr. Adams and the Council over how to manage them.

The laws in question are a package of bills the Council passed last year to make more people eligible for a housing voucher program as record numbers of homeless people entered city shelters. Mr. Adams vetoed the legislation, saying it would be too expensive.

The Council voted overwhelmingly in July to override the mayor's veto. But since then, the administration has failed to expand eligibility for the vouchers, the lawsuit said. While outside groups often sue the city, legal action by the City Council against the board is more rare.

Legal Aid, a group that represents New Yorkers and others with low incomes in a variety of legal matters, filed their lawsuit as a class action on behalf of those who qualify for the vouchers, known as CityFHEPs.

“The Adams Administration's refusal to implement the law is unacceptable, and the city must take immediate action to ensure that the thousands of New Yorkers who are homeless or on the brink of homelessness and who now qualify for CityFHEPS safe, long-term and affordable housing,” said Robert Desir, staff attorney at Legal Aid.

The voucher program is one of the city's most important ways to combat homelessness. Eligible renters typically spend no more than 30 percent of their income on rent, with the rest paid by the city.

The mayor made a number of changes to the voucher program by executive order, including eliminating a rule that requires people to stay in a homeless shelter for 90 days before becoming eligible, a change that homelessness advocates have long sought.

However, the package of laws adopted by the Council went further. The legislation would, among other things, ensure that tenants are eligible for a voucher after receiving a request for unpaid rent from their landlord. Previously, people typically had to prove through housing court that they were facing eviction.

City Council President Adrienne Adams has said the mayor's efforts fall short of what the law requires.

“Just as you have to comply with the law, I have to comply with the law, and the administration has to comply with the law as well,” Ms. Adams said last week.

Lately, Mr. Adams and the City Council have also been at odds on other issues. Last month, the Council voted to override Mr. Adams' vetoes of bills that would require police officers to record the race, age and gender of most people they stop and that would end solitary confinement in prisons of the city.

The mayor has said the changes to the voucher program would cost billions of dollars more than the city can afford.

In 2023, the city spent nearly $500 million on the program, nearly double what it spent in 2021, according to the city's Independent Budget Office. The city says vouchers will help about 36,000 households pay rent.

Renter and homelessness advocates have argued that moving more people into permanent housing would help alleviate pressure on the city's shelter system caused by an influx of migrants over the past two years. More than 66,000 migrants are currently in the city's care.

During the fiscal year ending in June 2022 — just before the arrival of migrants sent costs soaring — the city shelter system was paid $136 per night, or nearly $50,000 per year, to house one adult. It cost $188 a night, or almost $70,000 a year, to house a family with children.

Christine Quinn, former City Council President and CEO of WIN, a network of shelters for women and children, said the city could save hundreds of millions of dollars and prevent tens of thousands of people from becoming homeless by enacting the voucher reforms.

Mr. Adams has also said the city simply does not have enough housing to house everyone with a voucher. The vacancy rate in apartments renting for less than $2,400 was less than 1 percent in 2023, according to data released by the city last week.

““Idealism is constantly clashing with realism,” Mr. Adams said at a news conference on Tuesday, adding that increasing the number of voucher holders would only “worsen the problem. “The realism is that we don't have the inventory.”

He said the council had “good intentions” but suggested the program could be abused and called for the focus to be shifted to building more homes.

“The way out of this,” Mr. Adams said, “is No. 1: build more.”

Pierina Sanchez, a Bronx councilwoman and sponsor of two parts of the legislative package, called the mayor's focus on housing supply short-sighted and his implication that the vouchers could be abused “poverty shaming.”

In her district, where the median income is much lower than the city's, Ms. Sanchez often has residents who struggle to stay in their homes.

“We have to do things differently to meet the demands of this moment,” Ms. Sanchez said. “Part of doing it differently means expanding access and stabilizing our lowest-income New Yorkers.”

Andy Newman reporting contributed.