As Albany makes its way through the 2025 legislative session, the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) implores the State Legislature to pass the following policies and budgetary measures as they impact the communities we serve and our broader mission to combat racial, social and economic injustice:
Budget Priorities:
- Bolster civil legal services funding by supporting $150 million proposed by the NYS Office of Court Administration for Judiciary Civil Legal Services (JCLS) and adding $2.5 million to the $77.5 million appropriation for the Interest on Lawyers Account (IOLA)
- Maintaining the Executive Budget’s restored $40 million for the Homeowner Protection Program (HOPP) to prevent deed theft, loan modification, partition scams and other schemes targeting elderly and homeowners of color
- Maintaining the $100 million in total funding for Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) to cover contracts through 2028 and the $20 million reappropriation to cover contracts through 2025, all to ensure the continued provision of survivor-centered legal services
- Increasing funding for the Disability Assistance Program (DAP) by at least $1.5 million from the Legislature to supplement the $5.26 million proposed by the Executive, so that DAP can continue closing thousands of cases, returning over $2.5 million to disabled New Yorkers and nearly $16.5 million to the State and counties in the past contract year alone
- Maintaining the $3 million from the Executive and a supplemental $500,000 from the Legislature to fund the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program (EDCAP), so that we can continue working with student debt clients already facing financial hardship and systemic injustice
- Increasing the $1.76 million appropriation Managed Care Consumer Assistance Program (MCCAP) by at least $1 million to cover rising costs and meet the increased demand of New Yorkers seeking Medicare plans that best cover their prescriptions and preferred providers
Health Access:
- Ensuring access to home- and community-based care services
- Repealing the minimum of three Activities of Daily Living (ADL) to qualify for Medicaid personal care and consumer-directed services
- Restoring “housekeeping” program for those who need assistance shopping, cleaning or doing laundry due to disability
- Repealing the lookback and transfer penalty for homecare
- Passing the Home Care Savings and Reinvestment Act to replace the Managed Long Term Care (MLTC) program with a cost-effective home care model
- Repealing last year’s law transitioning to a single fiscal intermediary for Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) administration
- Passing the MLTC Data Transparency Act to ensure accountability for how MLTC plans to spend the billions they receive in public funds via monthly premiums
- Expanding Medicaid eligibility
- Including all immigrants in the Essential Plan
- Eliminating the asset test and limits for aged, blind and disabled New Yorkers’ eligibility
- Building on last year’s expansion of continuous eligibility for children aged 0 through 6 to include continuous eligibility to older children for a multi-year period
- Reducing the role of managed care in providing essential services
- Refraining from moving the system of services for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities or those served through other Medicaid waiver services (e.g., Nursing Home Transition and Diversion and Traumatic Brain Injury waivers) to Medicaid managed care
- Removing behavioral health service from Medicaid managed care
- Repealing the transfer of School-Based Health Centers to managed care
Human Services:
- Expanding access to Public Assistance, SNAP, Rental Supplements and Housing Voucher Programs
- Increasing the standards of basic public assistance and home energy grant amounts
- Setting a SNAP minimum benefit for recipients
- Increasing resource limits for public assistance applicants
- Passing the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) to improve housing stability for those experiencing homelessness or facing eviction
- Expanding housing voucher eligibility regardless of immigration status
- Passing the CARES Act to ensure immigrants who are victims of crimes and their families are eligible for TANF block grants, Safety Net Assistance and Medicaid
- Eliminating asset limits in determining eligibility for public assistance
- Improving shelters and addressing homelessness
- Prohibiting arbitrary shelter stay limits
- Increasing monthly allowances for shelter residents
- Establishing the Housing People and Animals Together grant program to expand co-sheltering options for survivors of intimate partner violence with pets
- Eliminating rents for shelters
- Requiring homeless shelters to maintain opioid antagonists
- Providing internet access to individuals residing in shelters
- Preserving veterans’ benefits
- Excluding Veterans Disability and Workers’ Compensation benefits from income as it relates to the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and the Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE) programs
- Making veterans, regardless of discharge status, a protected class for unlawful housing discrimination
- Increasing income limit eligibility and preference in public housing for post veterans or families of veterans who have a military service-connected disability
- Increasing housing protections for Veterans by recognizing veterans as a protected class specifically for the purpose of housing discrimination
- Expanding funding for legal services for veterans, including raising the financial eligibility for services and exercising the scope of legal issues covered
- Improving protections for elders, survivors of intimate partner violence, and people with disabilities by ensuring coerced debt victims can dispute and discharge their liability
- Reforming current predatory public assistance and Medicaid overpayment collections processes to protect due process rights and economic security of benefits recipients
Immigration
- Making New York safer state for immigrants
- Passing the New York for All Act to make New York a sanctuary state
- Amending the Protect Our Courts Act to include schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters
- Passing the Access to Representation Act to establish the right to legal counsel in immigration court proceedings and investing $165 million for immigration legal services
Read a more in-depth explanation of our budget priorities as well as our Health Access and Human Services policy agendas, including bill numbers and descriptions, here.
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