Categories: New York City, Network Events
03.06.2026
On March 5th, the Network hosted its third annual virtual City Council Lobby Day. Over 70 participants, including 36 tenants, representing 30 unique organizations joined us for 22 meetings with Council offices throughout the day to advocate for budgetary and legislative priorities to advance supportive housing in New York City.
Our top priorities were:
- $44M in capital and $21.3M in the expense budget to preserve 325 supportive housing units in FY2027
- A 3% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for human services workers and the establishment of a wage requirements for city-contracted human services workers
- $6 million to support the peer behavioral workforce in FY2027
Learn more about our priorities here.
The day started with a virtual kick-off with participants to ground us in our collective advocacy. Network Executive Director Pascale Leone spoke to the importance of direct service staff and tenant advocates speaking from lived expertise: "You are the advocate, educator, and voice for change. You are here to say: our communities are stronger when everyone has a place to call home."
Tenant advocates shared the impact supportive housing made in their lives. Cynthia English said, "In supportive housing, I had people who believed in me."
Council Member and Chair of General Welfare Committee Crystal Hudson joined and underscored the importance of our advocacy, "Supportive housing is housing and healthcare. It is critical to the wellbeing of residents and allows people to age in place with dignity."
Thank you to Council Member offices for meeting with us: Council Members Kayla Santosuosso, Virginia Maloney, Tiffany Cabán, Shahana Hanif, Kevin C. Riley, Crystal Hudson, Sandy Nurse, Darlene Mealy, Alexa Avilés, Shanel Thomas-Henry, Oswald Feliz, Justin Sanchez, Lynn Schulman, Gale Brewer, Kamillah Hanks, Carmen De La Rosa, Mercedes Narcisse, Althea Stevens, Shekar Krishnan, Selvena N. Brooks-Powers, Harvey Epstein, and Speaker Julie Menin.
Thank you to everyone who participated and made the day a success!