Long Islanders at risk of eviction as federal program providing emergency housing vouchers runs out of money next year
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) headquarters in Washington, D.C., in 2019. Credit: Bloomberg/Andrew Harrer
After living in a homeless shelter for about a year, Zanelle Lee and her three children were finally able to leave behind the room they shared there for a three-bedroom house with a backyard and a driveway on a quiet Bay Shore street.
"It was like a weight lifted off of my shoulders," she said.
Lee, 37, was able to move to the house in 2021 through an Emergency Housing Voucher — a federal program that provides rental assistance to roughly 60,000 people across the country who are fleeing homelessness, domestic violence, human trafficking and other crises.
But now many of those families may be evicted should the program run out of money, leaving people like Lee and hundreds of other Long Islanders who use the vouchers with fewer housing options.
"Without the voucher, I don’t know ... what I would have done," said Lee, who also said "it's so scary" to think about the prospect of losing it.
The Emergency Housing Voucher program, which started in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan, is not expected to last past late 2026 as high rents drain $5 billion that Congress appropriated for the initiative, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and housing experts said. The money was supposed to remain accessible until September 2030.
Unless Congress adds more funding to the program, Long Island housing experts say many people could become unhoused in a region already facing a housing shortage. Experts warn that removing the vouchers could have an economic ripple effect on landlords dependent on the payments, as well as on school and health care systems.
"If the federal government defunds emergency housing vouchers and walks away from their obligations, they are putting families back on the street who have finally found a stable home," according to a statement from the New York State Homes and Community Renewal, which is a state agency focused on affordable housing.
The New York Housing Trust Fund Corporation, a public benefit corporation that is part of the state Homes and Community Renewal, said in an email that it administers 226 of the vouchers in Suffolk County and 139 in Nassau.
Across the state, there are roughly 9,450 households leasing through the Emergency Housing Voucher program, with some localities administering them as well, a HUD database showed. For example, the Town of Brookhaven has about 20 vouchers that are being used to lease, according to the federal database and the town.
Jessica Labia-Bookstaver, director of support programs at the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, said taking away the vouchers would add to the region's affordability crisis and essentially be "adding fuel to a fire that’s already burning."
What makes the Emergency Housing Voucher program essential, she said, is that it is not as restrictive as other housing programs in which the recipient of housing help has to have a disability or mental health diagnosis. The voucher cast a wider net of people who could be helped, she said.
"I like to say that vouchers [are] the key to never having to be in the shelter system again," Labia-Bookstaver said in a phone interview.
Last year, nearly 4,000 people experienced street homelessness and lived in shelters on Long Island, Newsday reported, citing HUD figures.
Meanwhile, reports of domestic violence — another avenue for people to be able to get the voucher — have increased on Long Island, going from about 7,765 instances in 2019 to nearly 10,300 in 2023, according to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice, Newsday reported last year.
Ian Wilder, executive director of Long Island Housing Services, said the vouchers are important because housing is the basic building block for people to regain stability in their lives, whether that makes it easier to get children registered in school, employment opportunities, or doctors’ appointments.
"It's almost impossible to provide somebody services or help them put their lives back together for whatever issue they're dealing with without having stable housing," he said in a phone interview.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has said the program should get another $8 billion.
But saving the program could be an uphill battle, experts warn. Funds for such programs are one of many targets for cuts in this year's federal budget.
Newsday reached out to spokespeople for Reps. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre), Nick LaLota (R-Amityville), Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) and Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) for comment about the Emergency Housing Voucher program. Spokespeople for Suozzi, LaLota and Garbarino either didn't respond or didn't provide a statement about their position.
Gillen did not say whether she supported increasing funds for the voucher program, but noted in a statement: "We need long-term solutions to bring down housing prices so that people have the opportunity to buy a home and build a life here."
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said in a statement that the voucher program "is critical to so many New Yorkers."
"I am working with my colleagues across the aisle to ensure that we continue funding for these vouchers," she said.
Lee said leaving the shelter has made a world of a difference, particularly for her children, now 21,17, and 12, who have better grades and attitudes.
"They can go in their room and do their own thing and have their own yard," she said. "And I think that plays a big part in, you know, children growing up, period," she said.
Today, the voucher pays most of her roughly $3,000 rent. She was able to pay more of her rent when she worked as a store manager at a gas station, but a breast cancer diagnosis made it difficult for her to work and left her on disability.
When asked what she planned on doing if the voucher program ended, Lee said she "honestly can't work" while on treatment, but said that's just what she may have to do to keep a roof over her family's head.
"If I have to do what I have to do for my kids or my family, then ... I'll do that," she said.
With AP
After living in a homeless shelter for about a year, Zanelle Lee and her three children were finally able to leave behind the room they shared there for a three-bedroom house with a backyard and a driveway on a quiet Bay Shore street.
"It was like a weight lifted off of my shoulders," she said.
Lee, 37, was able to move to the house in 2021 through an Emergency Housing Voucher — a federal program that provides rental assistance to roughly 60,000 people across the country who are fleeing homelessness, domestic violence, human trafficking and other crises.
But now many of those families may be evicted should the program run out of money, leaving people like Lee and hundreds of other Long Islanders who use the vouchers with fewer housing options.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- Hundreds of Long Islanders fleeing homelessness, domestic violence, and human trafficking and other crises and other obstacles with the help of a federal housing voucher may be evicted should the program run out of funds.
- The Emergency Housing Voucher program, which provides rental assistance to roughly 60,000 households across the nation, is rapidly running out of money as high rents drain $5 billion that Congress appropriated to the initiative.
- Unless Congress adds more funding to the program, Long Island housing experts say many people could become unhoused in a region already facing a housing shortage.
"Without the voucher, I don’t know ... what I would have done," said Lee, who also said "it's so scary" to think about the prospect of losing it.
The Emergency Housing Voucher program, which started in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan, is not expected to last past late 2026 as high rents drain $5 billion that Congress appropriated for the initiative, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and housing experts said. The money was supposed to remain accessible until September 2030.
Unless Congress adds more funding to the program, Long Island housing experts say many people could become unhoused in a region already facing a housing shortage. Experts warn that removing the vouchers could have an economic ripple effect on landlords dependent on the payments, as well as on school and health care systems.
"If the federal government defunds emergency housing vouchers and walks away from their obligations, they are putting families back on the street who have finally found a stable home," according to a statement from the New York State Homes and Community Renewal, which is a state agency focused on affordable housing.
Federal funding for emergency housing vouchers will run out of money at the end of next year. The map shows places where the vouchers are being used nationally. Credit: AP/Kevin S. Vineys
The New York Housing Trust Fund Corporation, a public benefit corporation that is part of the state Homes and Community Renewal, said in an email that it administers 226 of the vouchers in Suffolk County and 139 in Nassau.
Across the state, there are roughly 9,450 households leasing through the Emergency Housing Voucher program, with some localities administering them as well, a HUD database showed. For example, the Town of Brookhaven has about 20 vouchers that are being used to lease, according to the federal database and the town.
Jessica Labia-Bookstaver, director of support programs at the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, said taking away the vouchers would add to the region's affordability crisis and essentially be "adding fuel to a fire that’s already burning."
What makes the Emergency Housing Voucher program essential, she said, is that it is not as restrictive as other housing programs in which the recipient of housing help has to have a disability or mental health diagnosis. The voucher cast a wider net of people who could be helped, she said.
"I like to say that vouchers [are] the key to never having to be in the shelter system again," Labia-Bookstaver said in a phone interview.
Last year, nearly 4,000 people experienced street homelessness and lived in shelters on Long Island, Newsday reported, citing HUD figures.
Meanwhile, reports of domestic violence — another avenue for people to be able to get the voucher — have increased on Long Island, going from about 7,765 instances in 2019 to nearly 10,300 in 2023, according to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice, Newsday reported last year.
Ian Wilder, executive director of Long Island Housing Services, said the vouchers are important because housing is the basic building block for people to regain stability in their lives, whether that makes it easier to get children registered in school, employment opportunities, or doctors’ appointments.
"It's almost impossible to provide somebody services or help them put their lives back together for whatever issue they're dealing with without having stable housing," he said in a phone interview.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has said the program should get another $8 billion.
But saving the program could be an uphill battle, experts warn. Funds for such programs are one of many targets for cuts in this year's federal budget.
Newsday reached out to spokespeople for Reps. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre), Nick LaLota (R-Amityville), Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) and Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) for comment about the Emergency Housing Voucher program. Spokespeople for Suozzi, LaLota and Garbarino either didn't respond or didn't provide a statement about their position.
Gillen did not say whether she supported increasing funds for the voucher program, but noted in a statement: "We need long-term solutions to bring down housing prices so that people have the opportunity to buy a home and build a life here."
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said in a statement that the voucher program "is critical to so many New Yorkers."
"I am working with my colleagues across the aisle to ensure that we continue funding for these vouchers," she said.
Lee said leaving the shelter has made a world of a difference, particularly for her children, now 21,17, and 12, who have better grades and attitudes.
"They can go in their room and do their own thing and have their own yard," she said. "And I think that plays a big part in, you know, children growing up, period," she said.
Today, the voucher pays most of her roughly $3,000 rent. She was able to pay more of her rent when she worked as a store manager at a gas station, but a breast cancer diagnosis made it difficult for her to work and left her on disability.
When asked what she planned on doing if the voucher program ended, Lee said she "honestly can't work" while on treatment, but said that's just what she may have to do to keep a roof over her family's head.
"If I have to do what I have to do for my kids or my family, then ... I'll do that," she said.
With AP
Tiffany Cusaac-Smith is a general assignment reporter for Newsday. She previously worked at USA TODAY and is an alum of Howard University.
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