HASA Is Measuring 2026 Lives With 2012 Numbers

In 2014, under Mayor de Blasio, New York capped what HASA clients pay toward rent at 30 percent of their income. People living with HIV fought for nearly ten years to win that. Before the cap, some clients were handing over 70 percent or more of their disability checks to stay housed.

The cap still exists. But another rule behind it can erase that protection.

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To stay eligible for HASA rental assistance, you have to pass the state's "level of need" test. HASA starts with your income, subtracts your rent, then subtracts a set of allowances: $158 a month for food and basic necessities, $25.10 for energy, and smaller amounts for nutrition and transportation. If a single person has more than $376 left after all that, they can lose eligibility.

$25.10 a month for energy. Nobody in a New York City apartment pays that for electricity. Run an air conditioner through one summer here and the bill can climb into the hundreds.

And $376 is supposedly enough left over to mean you no longer need help. Try living in this city on $376 a month, with or without food stamps.

The $158 allowance was last raised in 2012. The utility allowances are older than that.

Social Security, meanwhile, adjusts every year. Washington raises disability benefits through cost-of-living adjustments because prices rise. In 2026 the increase was 2.8 percent.

So the federal government raises your check because living got more expensive. HASA then runs that check through a budget built on outdated figures and decides you have too much income to qualify. Rent is the same. Groceries cost more. The electric bill is the same or higher. You're still disabled. The raise that was supposed to help you keep up can cost you your housing assistance.

SSD is unearned income. You didn't get a new job or a promotion. HASA gives working clients an earned-income disregard so that going back to work doesn't immediately cost them their benefits, but Social Security gets no such protection. HASA's own FAQ says unearned income, Social Security included, doesn't qualify for the disregard.

Section 8 works differently. Assistance generally continues until the household's share reaches the full rent. For someone on a disability check in New York City, 30 percent of that income rarely comes close to market rent, so the help keeps going. Under HASA's formula, the same person can be pushed out because of a cost-of-living increase.

When the termination notice comes, the only way to protect your housing is to request a fair hearing. You're disabled, you're already dealing with whatever qualified you for HASA, and now you have to go downtown and argue about a formula that should have been updated years ago.

I've written to the city administration about this. Most of my letters got no answer. The one reply I received acknowledged the problem and expressed regret. Regret doesn't change the policy. The city knows this is happening, and the numbers are still the same.

Here is what should change.

Index the level-of-need budget to inflation the way Social Security is indexed. These amounts are set in state law, and legislation has already been introduced in Albany to raise them for inflation. The city should be pushing hard for it.

A Social Security cost-of-living adjustment should never, on its own, be enough to end someone's rental assistance.

When an SSD recipient does become ineligible under HASA's formula, the city should move them into another program like Section 8 instead of cutting them off.

Housing vouchers should go first to people with disabilities and people in shelters, rather than depending so heavily on open lotteries. Plenty of New Yorkers need help. But someone about to lose a home they've kept for years, because of an inflation adjustment, didn't stop needing help the day that adjustment arrived.

These are New Yorkers living with HIV, many of whom already face discrimination when they look for housing. Start by updating the numbers.