Advocates urge funding boost for human-rights enforcement and press for true cost-of-living measure

At the public testimony portion of the Committee on Civil and Human Rights hearing, a coalition of legal services providers, fair housing advocates and community groups urged the Council to press the mayor to restore and increase funding for the city's civil-rights enforcement agency and to use a true cost of living metric to inform budget decisions.

Rebecca Kukmack, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said the mayor's preliminary budget continues "the cycle of disinvestment" at the Commission on Civil and Human Rights and previewed March testimony calling for a restoration to $25 million in FY27 so CCHR can mount an early-intervention team and ensure timely responses to complaints. "We are calling on the mayor to fund CCHR in FY27 at $25,000,000," Kukmack said.

Yvette Chen of the Fair Housing Justice Center told the committee that source-of-income discrimination remains the most common housing complaint (more than 600 claims last year) and said the Fair Chance in Housing law (effective Jan. 1, 2025) requires new enforcement resources for public education and investigations.

Madeline Neely of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies described the Urban Institute's True Cost of Economic Security (TCES) work adapted to New York City and said the measure shows the median New York City family with children would need roughly $165,300 a year to be economically secure under that metric; she argued that such a measure would help policymakers identify where funding is needed.

Logan Clark of the Independent Budget Office also testified about data and structural limits in budget reporting that impede equity-informed decisions. Clark recommended improving units of appropriation and expanding geographic reporting so advocacy and oversight bodies can evaluate which neighborhoods and populations are served by particular line items.

Community speakers including Omar Thompson (New Harlem Renaissance) and other neighborhood leaders warned that delayed racial equity planning and funding decisions mean workforce-development pipelines and essential services are delayed or under-resourced.

The hearing produced no formal funding action. Councilmembers and witnesses agreed to continue the conversation at the Council's March budget hearings; advocates said they will press the administration to restore and increase funding for enforcement and to release and use the true cost of living metric in budget deliberations.