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Activists with Citizen Action, a local economic justice advocacy group, filed into the Monroe County Legislature this week to offer public comment on expanding access to the Housing Access Vouchers Program.
Their comments come on the heels of a recent letter signed by Rochester Mayor Malik Evans and other upstate mayors that urged Gov. Kathy Hochul to consider increasing funding and access to the program in budget deliberations.
Housing access vouchers have served as a rallying point for organizations focused on economic justice in Greater Rochester, including Citizen Action, Vocal-NY, and the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative. These groups have advocated for expanding HAVP or the federally funded Section 8 voucher program. (HAVP, a state program, is modeled after Section 8.)
Citizen Action, in a statement calling for speakers at Tuesday’s Monroe County Legislature session, pointed to the rising costs of living and inflation as key drivers of the affordability crisis affecting low-income families in Rochester and New York.
“It would seem to be common sense to increase the amount of housing vouchers as inflation and other economic factors have increased the cost of living in every sector of our socio-economic order,” said Jalil Muntaqim, lead campaign coordinator for Citizen Action’s Rochester chapter, in a public statement calling for speakers at the Legislature meeting.
The HAV program is a state-funded program managed by New York State Homes and Community Renewal. The program subsidizes part of the rent for low-income tenants statewide, lowering their rent burden to 30% or less of their monthly expenses. Eligible households are those making less than 50% of the area median income, and facing eviction and/or homelessness.
The letter from Evans and others advocates for greater access to HAVP and increased funding for it as the state works on its annual budget.
Signatories of the letter are Dorcey Applyrs, mayor of Albany; Steve Noble, mayor of Kingston; and Sharon Owens, Syracuse mayor. Also addressed in the letter are state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.
This is the second letter sent to Hochul in favor of expanding the program. On April 10, executive directors of the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials and the New York State Association of Counties asked Hochul to increase the HAV program’s budget to $250 million, or five times the current budget of $50 million.
Legislation to increase access and funding for HAVP has stalled, with some legislators citing a lack of funds and concerns about the implications of the state funding a program already administered by the federal government through Section 8. The program does not require applicants to pass background checks on immigration status and criminal history, another point of criticism.
Presently, the bill is being deliberated in the state Senate Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development.
Signatories of the April 29 letter describe HAVP as a key part of easing the state’s affordability crisis.
“While building more affordable and supportive housing is a necessary step for these communities (with limited resources), it should be coupled with increased investment in rental assistance to holistically address the problem,” the letter states. It also highlights the state’s affordability crisis, citing the estimated 158,000 New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, and the 46% of renters who are considered rent-burdened.
Legislation for HAVP has existed since 2019. In May 2025, a pilot program with a $50 million budget for the first year was approved in the state budget. Just under 2,000 vouchers have been issued statewide, with funding allocated on a county-by-county basis, a system described in the April 29 letter as “a strong strategy that will, unfortunately, be unable to meet the immense and urgent needs across the state without a larger investment.”
“This program just can’t reach as far as it needs to without real funding,” said Tracie Adams, a leader with the Vocal-NY’s Homelessness Union campaign, in a statement. “We know that 62 vouchers for everyone in Monroe County isn’t enough. Across the state, it is not enough, and the clock is ticking.”
Aqua Porter, executive director of RMAPI, agrees.
“The allocation fails to address that reality or meet the full needs in our community or across the state,” she says. “That is why Rochester City Council President Miguel Meléndez Jr. elevated this as a key recommendation in his homelessness report, and why Rochester Mayor Malik Evans has signed on to support a full $250 million allocation. We join them in calling on state lawmakers to meet the scale of the crisis and fund HAVP at the level our communities need.”
David Wazana is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a member of the Oasis Project’s second cohort.
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