Rivera’s bill to expand supportive‑housing eligibility draws broad provider support and agency concern over capacity

Council Member Rivera told the Criminal Justice Committee she is sponsoring Intro 1,100 to amend eligibility rules for the city’s supportive‑housing program so people recently released from jail can qualify for units and services that advocates say prevent cycling between incarceration, homelessness and hospitalization.

Why it matters: Supportive housing is central to the city’s strategy for safely reducing the jail population, advocates and providers said. At the same time, city agencies warned that program capacity and federal eligibility rules complicate immediate expansion, and they proposed a narrower administrative fix while continuing talks with the council on statutory change.

What the bill would do

Rivera said Intro 1,100 would amend the city‑funded New York City 15/15 supportive‑housing program to include people who were released from incarceration within the prior 12 months as an eligible population. Rivera said the change is intended to remove an “arbitrary” federal cutoff that disqualifies many justice‑involved people because institutional days (for example, stays in jail) are counted as breaks in homelessness.

Provider and city responses

Providers and supportive‑housing advocates — including Fortune Society speakers, the Supportive Housing Network, and the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) — urged passage. They said housing stabilizes people with serious mental illness or substance‑use disorders, reduces recidivism, and costs far less than continued incarceration. During public testimony providers and returned‑citizen witnesses gave firsthand accounts of how supportive housing changed lives.

HRA and the mayor’s supportive‑housing office told the committee they could not support the bill as written. Craig Retchless of the Mayor’s Office of Supportive and Affordable Housing (OSAS) said the bill’s broad criteria risk overwhelming limited city units that are targeted to chronically homeless people under the HUD definition. HRA said it issued an addendum to the New York City 15/15 RFP to expand eligibility to a more narrowly defined group of people with jail or hospital stays who have had either 2 or more incarcerations or hospitalizations and at least 180 days of homelessness in the last four years; that addendum takes effect on 2025‑05‑05.

Costs and comparisons cited at the hearing

Speakers offered different cost comparisons: several advocates noted supportive housing service estimates that range from about $17,500 per year (services) plus rent, to vendor testimony that supportive housing costs roughly $55,000 a year per person including services and rent; city testimony emphasized that supportive housing is far less costly than jail — which witnesses repeatedly estimated at roughly $400,000 per person per year. Speakers attributed the differences to program type, geography and whether capital or operating costs were included; council members asked agencies for consistent, itemized cost estimates.

Next steps and outstanding questions

HRA said it will continue to work with the council and providers to refine eligibility and referral processes. Providers urged the council to pass Intro 1,100 or an equivalent statutory change and to pair an eligibility expansion with additional capital and operating funding to add units and ensure services are available when people move into housing.

Ending note

Council members signaled support for expanding access to housing but emphasized the need to ensure that expansions do not simply create long wait lists with no available units. HRA welcomed further talks with sponsors to refine the proposal and address placement and referral mechanics.