Good morning, welcome to New York City Council.

For the Committee on Housing and Building, please silence all cell phone electronic devices.

Moving forward, no one is to approach the days.

Chair Sanchez, we are ready to begin.

Thank you, Sergeants, and good morning.

I'm Council Member Pierina Sanchez, very sleep deprived and with remarks that aren't totally edited.

So good luck.

And chair of the committee on housing and buildings.

I'm joined today by my colleagues.

And before I begin any remarks, I want to start with gratitude to Speaker Julie Manon for really holding the line on a settlement on the FEPS legislation and negotiation to the leadership of the city council to the Progressive Caucus, especially.

We are in a monumental moment.

Today, we will vote on a preconsidered introduction T 2026-2097, sponsored by me, that will establish a new rental assistance program for New Yorkers facing imminent eviction and those living in shelter who were previously excluded from the existing city for HEPS program.

This legislation is advancing a component of a settlement between the City Council, the Mamdani administration, and the Legal Aid Society, ending more than two years of litigation.

City FEPS was established in 2018 to secure stable housing for the most vulnerable New Yorkers.

And in 2023, the council voted to expand the City FEPS program to provide housing to hundreds of thousands of our most vulnerable New Yorkers.

But the previous mayoral administration refused to implement the law, even after mayoral veto was overturned, would not implement the law.

So legal aid society and the council joined together to bring the act an action to court.

And after a multi-year legal battle and countless hours of negotiation beginning with the Mamdani administration, today's settlement, the FY27 budget, and this piece of legislation together represent a historic agreement that ensures New Yorkers facing homelessness will finally benefit from a significant expansion in New York City housing vouchers.

The legislation brought forward today preserves the key goals of the 2023 City for HEPS reform laws to keep New Yorkers facing evictions in their homes and to remove arbitrary arbitrary eligibility barriers for New Yorkers living in shelters.

With a with concrete funding commitment as well of 175 million dollars in fiscal year 27 and 125 million dollars baseline starting next year.

This legislation will provide tens of thousands of New Yorkers, approximately 9,600 families, the stability and relief that they have been waiting on for years.

There has been some um misunderstandings in the press, so I want to just spell out some of what is in this legislation in terms of eligibility.

Eligibility is largely kept intact, so we are expanding access to uh to these to this new voucher program for families and in and adults in shelter who earn above 200 uh FPL and below 50% of AMI.

So what that means is that we're keeping the increased income threshold from the 2023 laws.

We're also expanding access to runaway homeless uh youth, uh those those people uh folks living our young people living in DYCD shelters, uh, those are who are living in HPD shelters, and those who are living in MOCJ MOCJ shelters.

So there has been no cutting of eligibility for folks in shelter.

In community, uh, we are similarly keeping the income threshold at 50% of AMI, which is an increase, and also just a new category of eligibility altogether because folks in community were previously not eligible for uh these vouchers, and so folks in community who are facing eviction actively in housing court will be and and who are living in a rent stabilized apartment will be eligible for the voucher.

There's no work requirement across the board.

Uh, and importantly, the legislation include includes a provision that allows the administration and the city council to expand access as and if who knows?

Life is funny, things change.

There is extra money in in a future time.

So to ensure that the fair distribution of available vouchers, funding will be evenly allocated between the in-shelter um eligible population and the in-community uh eligible population.

We are codifying that the reform laws, some of the reform laws that were passed, including the 90-day rule that was passed by uh then, or um ending the 90-day rule rather that was passed by then council member and deputy speaker, Diana Ayala, and reforming the utility allowance that was passed by council member Tiffany Caban.

And as I told you it was an unedited, but I want to make sure that the facts are right.

This is the only time I won't have a time limit to talk about this, uh, but I I just cannot emphasize enough that this is a historic win for vulnerable New Yorkers.

We're expanding housing vouchers responsibly, we're controlling the cost because this is a capped appropriation.

It is not an entitlement program, and we're putting uh most fundamentally, most important to me personally is that we're putting the city on a stronger pathway, pivoting us from costly shelter reliance toward permanent homes.

Today we're we're marking a day where we stop prioritizing paying more for worse outcomes for our families, outcomes that destabilize our our communities.

And with that, uh I have a long list of acknowledgements, but I've kept you long enough, so I I just want to um finally thank the of course the staff, the ledge division, I see you, Andrea Vasquez, Mita, Desmoog, uh, Jeff Baker, um, of course, our general council Maka Hebe, our finance division, Jonathan Rosenberg, Nick Connell, Julia Haramis.

Um I've given him this is awkward, but I've given him the nickname that I said I wouldn't say in public, but you know, we're there.

Our the general counsel at the mayor's side, Stevie B, Steve Banks.

We we got to the finish line here.

Uh really really appreciate all the work.

And um the coalition, the homes can't wait coalition, legal aid society, vocal New York win, coalition for the homeless VOA Safety Net Project, CSS.

There are more, but I just want to thank you all for holding the line, getting us to this finish line.

Um, and to my team, my chief of staff, Maria Villalobos, Ben Ratner, Kim Castellanos, Gerard Fernandez, Dylan Campos, Maria José Mares, Soraya Bonilla, Oriana Roa Acevedo, our interns, Mia, Marcus and Ari, uh, everybody worked so hard on this.

Thank you for indulging me.

And with that, um, unless our colleagues want to say anything, I think I asked the clerk to call the roll.

Thank you.

Good morning, William Martin, committee clerk.

Roll call vote committee on housing and buildings.

Chair Parina Sanchez.

Aye.

Riley.

Aye.

Felice.

Proudly vote aye.

Abrau.

Congrats, Chair.

I vote aye.