Mayor Mamdani and Speaker Menin: Unite to Deliver for Low-Income & Working-Class New Yorkers
June 23, 2026
FY 27 New York City Budget Memo
The Mamdani Mayoral campaign was clear and powerful — it painted a picture of a New York City that delivers for low-income and working-class New Yorkers through effective governance and real solutions to the big problems plaguing our city. Voters supported this vision. The upcoming city budget is the first crucial opportunity to demonstrate the values of that campaign, and the leadership of this new Mayor, to all New Yorkers.
Speaker Menin has publicly supported the expansion of Fair Fares and CityFHEPS, presenting a genuine opportunity for a united city government to deliver together. We understand the fiscal constraints the city faces. But the three issues below are high-impact, politically winnable, and speak directly to the messages the Mayor campaigned on, and the Speaker’s commitments.
Key Budget Priorities:
Free and Expanded Fair Fares: Free fares are crucial for low-income New Yorkers to stay engaged in treatment, get to medical appointments, court dates, job interviews, access childcare, and stay connected to their communities. Expanded Fair Fares (half-priced OMNY cards) would put money back in the pockets of working-class New Yorkers. Together, they would reduce fare evasion enforcement — tickets and arrests that are currently on the rise — and set the city on a path toward universal MTA access for all. Nearly 2 million New Yorkers, including roughly 50% of Bronxites, would benefit directly from this shift, making this a powerful and visible early win for the administration and the Council.
- Free Fares for New Yorkers living at or below 150% of the Federal Poverty Line
- Expanded Fair Fares for New Yorkers living at or below 300% of the Federal Poverty Line
CityFHEPS Expansion: We urge City Hall and the Council to agree on a settlement approach for CityFHEPS expansion focused on delivering the most expansive, fiscally feasible reforms in FY27. The 2023 reforms expanded the program to households at risk of eviction in the community, increased the income limit for homeless households, removed work requirements, and extended eligibility to homeless households in non-DHS shelters. Building on that foundation, full expansion would reduce the shelter population and stop the flow of New Yorkers into homelessness. This is the clearest opportunity for the Mayor and Speaker to demonstrate their commitment to keeping people housed — and to show what aligned city government delivers.
Real Solutions to Mental Health Needs & the Office of Community Safety: The administration must back its vision for an office dedicated to community safety — and redirecting police toward serious crime — with real investment. We urge the Mayor and Speaker to:
- Invest an additional $60 million into community-based mental health programs (on top of the ~$60 million already in the Executive Budget) to scale up infrastructure to address existing gaps for struggling New Yorkers. This could eliminate the IMT waitlist, expand ACT and FACT teams, increase Residential MICA treatment beds, fund crisis respite centers, and expand access to low-barrier housing.
- Direct Health + Hospitals to lead all clinical crisis response rather than NYPD or FDNY — starting by redirecting existing BHEARD contracts to H+H to build a functional mental health response program, including a 911 mental health triage and dispatch system.
H+H is the largest mental health provider in New York City. This is a clear and powerful opportunity for the Mayor to communicate the message he campaigned on: police fight crime, firefighters fight fires, and our healthcare system handles mental health crises, and for the Council to ensure their vision for an effective mental health response is achieved. Together, the Mayor and Council can put our city on track to address our mental health crisis in an effective and humane way that will be a model for big cities across the country.
Too often, vital policy wins get lost in the horse races of politics. These three investments are not abstract — they are real improvements in the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of poor and working-class New Yorkers the Mayor promised to uplift. We urge the Mayor and Speaker to unite to deliver for New York.