New York Hasn’t Raised Housing Allowances for Needy Residents in Decades. That’s Unconstitutional, a Lawsuit Says.
New York makes an unusual promise to its residents: Its constitution says the state must provide “aid, care and support for the needy.”
But for at least the fourth time in almost 40 years, the state is being sued for failing to live up to this commitment by putting impoverished families at risk of homelessness.
A new lawsuit filed last month argues New York is failing for the same reason it has in the past: The welfare allowance it provides for housing, known as a shelter allowance, doesn’t come close to the cost of the state’s rents, which are among the highest in the country. The Legal Aid Society and Empire Justice Center, both nonprofits, are demanding that the state increase the allowance and provide enough financial assistance to keep families and individuals housed.
“I don’t want to sleep in the street. I don’t want to go to the shelter,” said 54-year-old Minerva Pacumio, a plaintiff in the lawsuit who is facing eviction. “I don’t want to lose everything.”
New York’s shelter allowance doesn’t cover rent for modest private housing anywhere in the state, according to the lawsuit and an independent analysis performed by New York Focus and ProPublica. The state hasn’t raised the monthly allowance for families with children since 2003 — when it was set at $450 for a family of four in New York City. And the amount has barely budged for adult-only households since 1988.
Pacumio receives a $250 monthly allowance to cover the one-bedroom apartment she rents in Queens for $1,900. She lives with her two adult daughters, one of whom is disabled; Pacumio handles her care herself five days out of the week. The other, Pacumio said, has mental health issues and has been unable to find work.
Pacumio said she owes thousands in back rent.
“When you don’t change your shelter allowance amounts for 40 years for single people and 20 years for families, I think there’s a reasonable argument that could be made that you’re not even really trying to meet your constitutional obligations to provide aid and care to the needy in New York State,” said Pavita Krishnaswamy, a supervising attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Civil Practice Law Reform Unit.
The lack of aid pushes people toward an emergency shelter system that cannot meet the demand of rising homelessness: New York Focus and ProPublica last year found that nearly half of the state’s unhoused families and individuals outside of New York City are placed in hotels with minimal support to help them return to permanent housing. The state regularly pays more to put someone up in a hotel than it would have cost to cover rent for modest housing, the news organizations found.
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The Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the agency responsible for setting shelter allowances, has responded to past calls for an allowance increase by saying the Legislature would have to allocate more funding in the state budget. The budget is already projected to run multibillion-dollar deficits in coming years.
Over the past several legislative sessions, state lawmakers sponsored bills that would have pinned the allowance to fair market rent, the federal government’s estimate of how much it costs to rent modest private housing. Those bills have repeatedly failed, and their sponsors say little will change without the governor’s backing.
“The governor controls — any governor of New York state controls — the budget process. 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 office of Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, did not respond to multiple requests for comment or to written questions. 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 declined to comment for this story, citing the pending litigation.
In past litigation, the state has argued that the constitution doesn’t command the state to meet all of poor families’ needs.
A “Kafka-esque Situation”
For Legal Aid, this is familiar ground. This is at least the fourth lawsuit it has filed against the state accusing New York of failing to provide 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. Jiggetts was receiving $270 a month to help cover $381 in rent — about 70% of what she owed each month. Legal Aid argued that the state was shirking its obligation to keep her and her children safely housed.
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.
But the state waited until 2003 to raise the shelter allowance, blowing past the court’s original deadline by five years.
The state has also created a permanent supplement to fill the gap between the allowance and rent. But the supplement offered in the city is only available to families with children. So, when Pacumio’s youngest turned 18, she lost the supplement, which constituted the majority of her housing assistance. Outside New York City, that supplement is optional, and just 15 of 57 counties choose to offer it to families with children, according to the Empire Justice Center.
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.
Since 2003, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has reviewed the allowance four times — every five years, as required. During its last review in 2023, more than 100 comments poured in, many imploring the agency to 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. Michael Iapoce, the social services commissioner for Ulster County, wrote at the time that there wasn’t a single habitable apartment available for rent that would be covered by the shelter allowance.
“The shelter allowance is totally irrational and arbitrary,” he said. “There is no reasoned justification to keep the shelter allowance and supplements so low.” His comments on the regulations were attached as an exhibit to 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. The shelter allowance is too low to allow them to afford even a modest place, but under the rules, recipients may have their benefits cut if they stop looking.
State Sen. Brian Kavanagh, the Democratic chair of the Senate’s housing committee, said it’s hard to tease out how much it would cost to increase the shelter allowance because of how public assistance caseloads may change over time. As of June 2025, the most recent month for which figures are available, nearly three-quarters of a million people were receiving public assistance.
Kimberly Maldonado is one of the recipients. She has lived in the same rent-stabilized apartment in Brooklyn since she was 22. 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 $215 a month to help cover $1,114 in rent, doesn’t qualify for a state supplement because she doesn’t have minor children, and receives no other financial assistance for housing from the state.
Maldonado, a plaintiff in the new lawsuit, told New York Focus and ProPublica she was afraid that the state would never provide the help financially desperate New Yorkers 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 post New York Hasn’t Raised Housing Allowances for Needy Residents in Decades. That’s Unconstitutional, a Lawsuit Says. appeared first on ProPublica.
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