NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Kids Waitlisted for Childcare Vouchers Despite Funding Boost, Mayor Adams Sues Campaign Finance Board, and Thousands Could Face Homelessness Without Rental Vouchers

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Even after local and state leaders significantly boosted funding for child care vouchers, thousands of children are still on the waitlist for low cost care. Plus, Mayor Adams is suing the city's Campaign Finance Board for denying him $5 million in matching funds for his re-election bid. And finally, New York City will replace thousands of rental vouchers after the federal government’s Emergency Housing Voucher program expires. But at what cost?

Despite a boost in funding, some New York City kids are still waitlisted for child care vouchers. Mayor Adams sues the city's campaign finance board. And thousands of families could face homelessness without rental vouchers. From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Junae Piers. New York State and city officials dramatically increased funding for child care vouchers after the program far exceeded its budget. But while the added money will stop most families with,

with vouchers from getting kicked off the program, the city says about 3,000 children are still on the wait list. And enrollment for new families who qualify based on income remains closed. Nora Moran is with United Neighborhood Houses, which represents child care providers. She says that can leave families with difficult choices. Leaving the workforce, reducing hours is something that's just hard to come back from over time and is unfortunately a choice that, you know, we see women having to make in this economy where care is just so and almost prohibitively so. The average cost of child care is about $18,000 a year.

Mayor Eric Adams is suing the city's campaign finance board for denying him $5 million in matching funds for his reelection bid. WMYC's Elizabeth Kim explains. Adams's attorneys say the denial of matching funds is unconstitutional. The board has withheld matching funds since the mayor was indicted on federal corruption charges, alleging he used straw donors and accepted a little. contributions from foreigners. Those charges were dismissed in April at the request of the Trump Justice Department.

But the campaign finance board continues to reject the mayor's request for matching funds. The board says Adams failed to file necessary paperwork and that it has reason to believe he broke the law. This is the second time the mayor has sued the campaign finance board to unlock matching funds. His last suit was unsuccessful. The campaign finance board declined to comment. New York City will replace thousands of rental vouchers after the federal government's emergency housing voucher program expires. But at what cost? That's after the break. A memo back in March from the federal government sent shockwaves through housing agencies across the country.

The pandemic-era emergency housing voucher program was almost out of cash and would soon expire, five years ahead of schedule. The program helps pay the state. the rent for 70,000 households across the country, including nearly 8,000 in New York City and another thousand in New Jersey. Now, tenants face the risk of becoming homeless unless cities and states come up with ways to replace the funds. WMYC's David Brand joins me to discuss this further. So, David, first, explain what the Emergency Housing Voucher Program actually is, and tell me who it's helping. So this is a rental assistance program that was supposed to last until 2030. So local housing agencies, recipients who are using these vouchers to pay the rent and their landlords thought that things were stable and that they could count on these for another five years.

They work like other rental assistance programs. Low income people qualify for them based on their earnings. They pay no more than 30% of their income on rent. And the government covers the rest. It's like the Section 8 program. So this was a $5 billion program funded by Congress as part of the 2021. American Rescue Plan. You might remember it was this huge COVID spending package. And this was huge for a lot of families who really had no access to rental assistance programs any other way.

And it was especially big in New York City because New York City got 11% of the nationwide total. And the city's housing and social services agencies prioritized the most vulnerable people. So we're talking about domestic violence survivors, families with children, experiencing homelessness, even some homeless young people who were blocked from other rental assistance programs. And as I mentioned, David, that all changed in March, right? Right. So the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the federal housing agency, sent a memo to

local and state housing agencies saying that the program is almost out of money and that there would be no more coming. They attribute that to rising rents. They said, you know, this ran out faster because rents were rising faster than we expected, and so now there's no money left. And this next batch of funds is going to be the last one. This really caught housing agencies off guard because suddenly they had tens of thousands of low-income families and individuals at risk of losing their housing subsidies. And that could put them at risk of becoming homeless because suddenly they have to make up this difference in their rent.

Yeah. So what is New York City doing? I mentioned New York City got 11% of the nationwide total of these emergency housing vouchers. That was by far the most in the country, more than any other city or state. And was that because rent is so expensive here? Well, I think that's part of it. And I think just because of how many people live in New York City. And I would imagine there had some pretty effective advocates in Congress.

Chuck Schumer at the time was the majority leader, large congressional delegation. Rents are so high here. There's a housing crunch. Homelessness was so high. So New York City got this huge batch of vouchers and was so important for so many families. This was actually split between two housing agencies here. The first is the New York City Housing Authority, NYCHA, which we're more familiar with NYCHA as running public housing, but they also administer the largest housing voucher program in the country. They announced earlier this month that they'll be switching people to the more traditional Section 8 program who are about to lose their emergency housing vouchers.

So that means there's not going to be any disruption for those families and individuals with the emergency housing vouchers. They're going to switch onto this other rental assistance program. They're going to get to stay in their apartments. The landlords will get their rent money. Shouldn't lead to evictions. It kind of keeps things stable. But there's a consequence to that, and it's that no one knew we'll be getting Section 8 vouchers here in New York City.

And that's a big deal because last year, Nicaa and Mayor Adams announced that they'd be opening a waiting list for Section 8 vouchers for the first time in about 15 years. and they'd be issuing around 6,000 new vouchers to low-income families who were cut off previously. But now they have to use those vouchers, not for new people, but to keep the status quo, to replace the vouchers that others are losing. Okay. Who's the other agency? Well, the other agency is the Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development, HPD. They administer about 2,000 vouchers.

But they don't have the option to transfer people to Section 8 the way Nica does because they just don't have extra vouchers to spare. So right now they're kind of scrambling and they say they're going to rely on state and city funding sources to replace the subsidies that people are losing here. This is going to be tricky because New York State is facing a serious budget deficit. Okay. So that's New York City. What about other cities in the area? I also talked with the head of Newark, New Jersey's Housing Authority. And they administer about 100 emergency housing vouchers, a lot fewer than New York City. but still substantial.

And he tells me they're going to do what NYCHA did. And they're going to move people onto the traditional Section 8 program because they have vouchers to spare. So that will ensure people remain stably housed. They won't be at risk of eviction for non-payment. You know, similarly, though, at NYCHA means that fewer new households are going to have access to housing vouchers. State housing and social services agencies in New York and New Jersey also received hundreds of vouchers to distribute. but it's unclear how the state governments are going to step in here. New Jersey isn't answering questions.

I sent them emails and called. They said, you know, we acknowledge receipt, but they're not saying what they're going to do quite yet. And then New York Governor Kathy Hokel's office says they're still exploring their options, but really it's up to Congress to act here to replenish this funding and to make sure people with these really crucial housing subsidies don't lose them and become homeless. But that's a stretch because the Republican-controlled Congress that just passed historic budget cuts maybe unlikely to actually replenish this program. That's WMYC's David Burnett.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.