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Sharp Criticism Greets Bid to Limit Access to Homeless Shelters


homeless
Photo by Gail Robinson
City Councilmembers Stephen Levin, Annabel Palma and Jumaane Williams sharply criticized the city's plan to tighten eligibility requirement for homeless adults to gain access to the city's shelters.

(UPDATE: On Nov. 10, the City Council released a letter from the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance saying it had not approved the change in the screening procedures for the shelter system. It also criticized the city for trying to implement the change so quickly and for not consulting with the New York State Supreme Court. For more on the letter, go here. And on the afternoon of Nov. 10 the city agreed to delay the rules pending a court hearing. For more on that, go here.)

Thirty years ago, under a court order, New York City, the state and homeless advocates agreed to a decree that has governed the treatment of homeless adults in the city ever since. Last week, the Bloomberg administration revealed that it would change those rules and create new requirements for single people seeking admission to New York City shelters.

At a press conference and a hearing yesterday, City Council members and advocates sharply attacked the city's plan. Under two hours of overwhelmingly hostile and sometimes combative questions Commissioner for Homeless Services Seth Diamonddefended the changes and tried to rebut council members who took issue with the general thrust of the city's policy on homelessness and the increase in the number of homeless people under this administration.

As the day drew to a close, the new policy remained set to go into effect on Monday. The Legal Aid Societyplanned to go to court today to stop the change, and some council members held out hope the state might intervene to block the Bloomberg administration's move.

All this occurred as the Coalition for the Homeless released another report saying homelessness in the city had climbed to a new record high. And it took place against a backdrop of anger among many council members and social service advocates about the administration's widely perceived failure in combating homelessness.

"Rather than addressing the real issue, which is housing, the mayor has chosen to shut the front door of the shelter system" to the mentally ill and other vulnerable New Yorkers, Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said at a press conference. "For the first time in New York City's modern history, we have no housing program for homeless individuals."

Friends and Family

Under the new rules, the city would set stricter eligibility standards for entering the shelter system, changing the policy of the past three decades. An intake interview that now takes 45 minutes could run as long as two hours, according to the department.

In particular the policy will require people to detail where they have stayed over the past year in the hopes of determining, as Diamond told City Council Wednesday, whether they have another viable place to live. If they do, the city could deny them a bed in a shelter.

The system could result in one out of every 10 single adults seeking access to city shelters being denied it, Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless testified.

The new procedures, Diamond made clear, will aim to keep people out of the shelter system and in the community. It is, he said, "consistent with preserving precious resources for people who have no alternative."

Diamond estimated the change would save some $4 million -- even taking into account additional staff hired, at a cost of about $2 million, to conduct the more vigorous screening. He denied though, that that was the primary motivation.

"We didn't do it for the savings," he said. "We did it because we believe that people who have other options should explore those options."

Council members and advocates, though, fear that "exploration" -– and forcing people to provide an accounting of their whereabouts -- could deter many homeless people, particularly those with mental illness or substance addiction, from seeking shelter. That, they said, would add to the ranks of homeless people sleeping on the streets as winter approaches.

They also expressed concern about how the city would determine that the person had another place to go. Council members repeatedly pressed Diamond on the specifics of what would make a place appropriate housing. Did it have to have a bed for the homeless person. A bedroom? What if the people do not get along?

He refused to respond to hypothetical cases, said "If at the end of the day, there's not space, there's violence involved, it’s not a viable option."

What though, Councilmember Stephen Levin wondered, if a family simply does not want the person living with them.

"Brothers should take care of each other," Diamond said.

Probably no one would disagree with that in the abstract. but many questioned how the city could force someone to take in another person, however in need of a place to sleep he or she might be. The effort to compel people to offer their home to another person "is a basic infringement of the role of government into the decision making authority of a primary tenant," Christy Parque, executive director of Homeless Services United, a coalition of nonprofits serving the homeless, said in her testimony.

"Who is the city," Councilmember Jumaane Williams asked, "to tell someone you have no jurisdiction over who they should let people into their home?"

A Vulnerable Population

Diamond said the city decided to make the change because it found that of the single adults applying to the shelter system only 15 percent came from the streets. Many more were living with someone. In addition, he said, the city has had a similar policy for homeless families for 15 years, and he believes has proved largely successful.

Although Diamond did not say this explicitly, the Bloomberg administration in other instances has ascribed some of the increase in the shelter population to improvements it has made in the shelters. As Annabel Palma, chair of the city General Welfare Committee, put it, city officials like to say people "flock" to shelters.She and other dismiss the idea that anyone would go to a shelter who did not have to. Going to a shelter is "a cry for help," said Parque. "It's a matter of poverty and a lack of affordable housing."

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and others argue the family intake program has not been as successful as the administration claims. But even if the approach has worked for families, many say that does not mean it will work for single adults. Those involved with homelessness -- whatever their view on policy -- agree that homeless adults represent a more vulnerable population than members of homeless families.

The Department of Homeless Services estimated at the hearing that some 60 percent of homeless adults suffered from mental illness, had serious substance abuse problems or both.

It was that population who the Callahan decree aimed to protect. Coming out of case filed in 1979 on behalf of homeless men -- and bearing the name of a man who later died on the streets -- it provided a right to shelter for men who qualified for welfare or who were homeless "by reason of physical, mental or social dysfunction."

Legal Aid believes that the new city policy violates this decree. But Diamond challenged that contention saying any people denied shelter under the new rules were not technically homeless because they had a place –- albeit often not a place of their own –- to sleep.

Rather than neglecting the city's most vulnerable, he said, the policy will help them. It will seek to identify mental illness, he said. And it will provide assistance so people can stay in or move to alternative shelter – helping find mediation for family disputes, pointing a family in direction of aid that might make it easier for them to take in their homeless relative and so on.

"No one wants to have an increase in people on the street," he said. "It's not or intention to make barrier for the chronic street homeless. They have no other options."

But Steve Banks of the Legal Aid Society said the process itself can create a barrier. "Bureaucracy can kill people," he said.

Councilmember Gale Brewer, said the policy points up what she sees as a blind spot in the Bloomberg administration. "This administration does not support, fund or understand mental health, she said.

On the Fast Track

Along with the substance of the decision, council members raised concerns about the way the administration made it. Many seemed irritated that they heard of the new rules, not from the administration, but from a report on WNBC Thursday night.

Quinn called that "curious." "When the Bloomberg administration has a policy they think is good, they usually call," she said. With this policy, which she branded "wrong-headed and mean-spirited," they did not.

Diamond said the city had provided two weeks notice, although under questioning, said a letter had gone out to Legal Services – not the court involved or the council – alerting them of the change last Thursday.

With two legal holidays this week (Election Day and Veterans Day), the council scrambled to hold an emergency hearing before the measure went into effect. Beyond that, though, it remains unclear what council can do to stop the move.

Some council members held out hope the state could intervene. Quinn said the council would review its options following the hearing..

The Rise in Homelessness

The outcry represents the latest chapter in a long string of disputes involving the Bloomberg administration and the homeless. After vowing to cut homelessness by two thirds, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has seen it increase on his watch. Diamond tried to spin the numbers, saying that family homelessness had declined from its peak and the rate of increase had slowed. He could not, though, refute figures showing homelessness among single adults has risen, and that homelessness overall has increased.

Under a relentless barrage of questioning from Williams, Diamond portrayed the administration as having made major gains in its treatment of homeless people, improving the family intake process, treating people with more compassion and building a new intake facility in the Bronx. His comments were greeted with smatterings of derisive laughter.

The Coalition for the Homeless report –- probably not coincidentally – -only served to reinforce the arguments of his critics. It found that, as of Oct. 31, the shelter count reached 41,204. As for the record of this administration, it said that the total homeless shelter population is 33 percent higher than it was when Bloomberg took office with the number of homeless families 45 percent higher.

"At what point," Levin said at the press conference, "do you call it like it is and say these policies have been a failure?"

Gaps in Housing Program Leave Tough Choices for People with HIV


"I'm paying over 71 percent of my check toward rent. A lot of times I struggle to make it to a medical appointment because I don't have transportation money," said 48-year-old Wanda Hernandez, who is HIV positive. Hernandez is one of thousands of low income HIV positive people who receive some form of rental assistance from the city's HIV/AIDS Services Administration.

HIV/AIDS
Some advocates believe that people receiving with HIV/AIDS who receive housing assistance should not have to pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent.

The amount of rental assistance that a HASA client may receive varies depending on income. Hernandez, who makes a modest living working for a large corporation in the city, receives a small housing stipend and must pay most of her rent herself. This leaves her with little money to pay for basic things like electricity, a cell phone and transportation.

Some people receiving housing aid are guaranteed that their rent will total no more than 30 percent of their income from disability payments, with the government making up the rest, Hernandez and many other disabled people with HIV do not qualify for that.

Left with only about $340 a month after rent, Hernandez said, "I don’t get to travel, I don’t get to do social things that my friends will do, I cannot even buy toiletries because you can't buy them with food stamps."

Now, new policies adopted by HASA may make it even more difficult for people like Hernandez to obtain affordable housing, let alone pay for it.

The Limits of Assistance

In March, the administration announced that it was halving the amount of money it will pay to brokers working with HASA clients and will no longer provide cash security deposits to landlords who rent to their clients. Instead it will issue vouchers the building owners can use to request compensation for any damage. According to a study by Shubert Botein Policy Associates, 95 percent of HASA clients indicated these new policies as obstacles to securing affordable housing.

"My clients, because brokers are refusing to show them apartments or help them with housing, they're going back to sex work," Howard Haughton, program supervisor for case management at Village Care, said in a http://www.housingworks.org/activism/detail/new-nyc-policies-damaging-ability-to-find-aids-housing press release for Housing Works, which provides housing and healthcare support for people with HIV.

HASA currently serves 45,415 people in the city, an increase from 44,644 in May . Of these people, more than 26,000 receive some level of rental assistance. About 5,500 receive non-emergency housing and 1,700 receive emergency housing.

Affordable housing is a critical issue for low-income people diagnosed with HIV. With high living and medical costs, many must decide between paying their medical bills or rent every month.

Many of those who manage to obtain an apartment or rental assistance through HASA, still struggle to pay their rent because HASA assistance does not go far enough. To remedy that, Housing Works and other advocacy groups have pressed for the 30 percent rent cap for all of HASA clients. They argue that, without sufficient rental assistance from the city, many HIV positive people move into homeless shelters, where their chances of transmitting the disease and of their health deteriorating increases sharply.

"We should all be protected by the 30 percent rent cap, whether we live in supportive housing or not," Hernandez said.

In addition, HASA only provides rental assistance to people who have been diagnosed with AIDS. According to organizations like VOCAL, an advocacy group for low-income people with HIV, this spurs some low-income people who are HIV positive but do not have full-blown AIDS to stop taking the medication that will keep their disease from getting worse.

"The perverse thing is that if someone is newly diagnosed and they're HIV positive but they're in the shelter they face a choice between going on meds and hopefully staying healthy and not progressing to AIDS, but that means they stay in the shelter. Their other option is not taking their meds and not going to the doctor, so they get sick enough to qualify for a rental subsidy," VOCAL spokesperson Sean Barry said.

Limiting HIV's Spread

The city has adopted many policies over the years to improve the lives of residents living with HIV/AIDS and prevent the transmission of the disease. It was one of the first cities to adopt a free needle-sharing program to reduce HIV transmission, and its HASA program is one of the largest of its kind in the country. In addition to housing, HASA also provides its clients with medical care, employment and vocational services, counseling, and Medicaid and food stamps benefits.

Despite these achievements, New York City has over 107,000 people infected with the HIV/AIDs, a rate almost three times the national average. The New York metropolitan area has the fourth highest rate of AIDS – number of cases per 100,000 people -- in the country after Miami, Baton Rouge and Jacksonville. Even after decades of breakthroughs in medical treatment of HIV that have drastically increased the life spans of people with the disease, HIV remains the third leading cause of death for New York City residents.

To reverse this, many academics and advocates believe that the city should expand its HASA program to all low-income people with an HIV diagnosis and guarantee none of these people pays more than 30 percent of his or her income toward rent.

Studies by the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have shown that having a stable home is crucial to maintaining the health of people with HIV and reducing the transmission of the disease.

"When you control for every other type of intervention, housing makes the number one difference in someone's health and how likely they are to transmit the disease to someone else," Kristin Goodwin, director of New York City policy for Housing Works, said.

Angela Aidala, a professor of public health at Columbia University, has done extensive research on the effects that housing has on the lives of people living with HIV. In her work she has found that the little things that go along with having a permanent home can prove crucial in reducing the transmission of HIV and maintaining the health of those infected.

"People who are unstably housed are much less likely to have the supportive networks that can provide them with social support. If you need a ride to an appointment or a reminder to take your medication, all of those things that the rest of us who live in stable housing take for granted, are absent for those who do not have stable living arrangements," she said.

Aidala added that people who are homeless or unstably housed have little structure in their lives and struggle to maintain permanent relationships.

"That means there are more partners, more transactional sex, more casual sex," she said.

According to Aidala, the earlier people with HIV receive healthcare and adequate housing from programs like HASA the better.

"If people had healthcare as soon as possible after finding out they were positive and they had other resources like stable housing and adequate food, would it reduce transmission? Certainly that's what the data that we have now would indicate," she said.

Paying the Bill

Although research has shown that housing plays a critical role in fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the city and state have rejected legislation to extend HASA to all low-income people with HIV and guarantee a 30 per cent rent cap because of the projected cost. In 2008, City Councilwoman Anabel Palma introduced a bill called HASA for All, which would have expanded HASA rental assistance to all qualified HASA applicants diagnosed with HIV. The bill, opposed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn who said it was too expensive, never made it to the floor for a vote.

On the state level, a year ago, a bill that would have guaranteed a 30 percent rent cap for all HASA clients passed both chambers of the state legislature, but was vetoed by former Gov. David Paterson also because of its price tag.

Despite the initial high costs, advocates of these two bills believed they would have saved the city and state money in the long run.

"If somebody becomes homeless as a result of being evicted because they can longer afford to pay 60 percent of their limited income for housing, the city and state are required to provide them with emergency housing which is frequently substandard and more expensive,” Assemblymember Deborah Glick, the author of the rent cap bill, said. "While there may have been some start-up costs, we believe in the end [the rent cap bill] would be saving money."

Goodwin of Housing Works said a program like HASA for all would reduce Medicaid costs and spending on emergency housing and homeless shelters.

"Housing is very expensive so it seems like it's not worth it financially, but in the long run if you look at everything else, it's the most cost effective thing you could do," she said.

Beyond housing, many low-income HIV positive people also need counseling, job training, and medical services. Supportive housing offers this in addition to a place to live, but the city's supply falls short of the need, according to Goodwin. Housing Works currently has long lines for 170 supportive housing units that it owns.

In an e-mail interview, city Human Resources Administration spokesperson Carmen Boon said she did not expect any proposals to guarantee a 30 percent rent cap would be introduced in the state legislature anytime soon.

Echoing Boon's words, Glick said she does not plan to reintroduce her bill in the near future. "We are in a regroup process. We lost a number of people who were yes votes and we lost a number of Democratic seats in the [2010] election," she said.

VOCAL spokesperson Sean Barry said he has little hope that the city would pass something like HASA for All with its tight budget and different priorities.

"We've seen a wholesale abandonment of Bloomberg's first term promise to both reduce the amount of HIV infections in the city and significantly reduce the population of homeless New Yorkers," he said.

Barry has more faith in Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

"We've got a governor, a former HUD secretary who worked on homelessness in the '80s, so we think we have a sympathetic audience in Albany," he said.

According to Barry, VOCAL wants to get the rent cap bill enacted through Cuomo's Medicaid redesign process. Barry said members of Cuomo's administration have acknowledged that soaring Medicaid costs in the state can be partially attributed to homeless people cycling in and out of hospitals.

"If you give someone affordable housing with a rent cap, you're going to spend less money on shelter costs. … That's before you even consider Medicaid savings, which will be even more savings, but indirect savings," he said.

As for the city, Barry said he is looking forward to the 2013 mayoral election.

"People with HIV are starting treatment much earlier on so they don't progress to AIDS and that means we must acknowledge that our medical eligibility for HASA assistance, which was developed in the 1980s, is outdated. We want to make [eligibility for HASA] an issue in the next mayoral race," he said.

Will Albany Allow the Rent Laws to Expire? Does it Matter?


To read and join the discussion on rent regulation go here.

Tenants rallied for stricter rent laws last month.

On Monday Sen. Bill Perkins and Assemblymember Jose Rivera were arrested with about a dozen fellow protestors as they marched on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office.

"Stronger rent laws now, renewal's not enough," chanted a group of around 200 who were in Albany to press lawmakers to pass stronger rent laws.

On June 15 the laws that keep apartments affordable for millions of New Yorkers will expire. With Democrats pushing for stronger regulations and Republicans supporting a simple extension of the existing law, things seem to have come to a standstill. To further complicate matters, the issue has been tied to the passage of a cap on property taxes in most of the rest of the state.

With their affordable housing in jeopardy, tenants are hearing mixed messages from legislators and advocates.

On one hand, Republicans and some Democrats say tenants would feel little, if any, immediate effect if the law expired. Those Republicans and Democrats have different reasons for saying that. Democrats want time to work for a better bill; Republicans think the longer it takes to get a bill the more likely they will be able to simply renew the existing regulations rather than strengthen the law. With little time left in session, it is becoming apparent that Republicans do in fact have the upper hand in negotiations.

Other legislators -- many of them with particularly strong ties to tenant groups -- counter that missing the June 15 deadline could set off panic and prompt landlords to quickly raise rents on many homes.

Underlying the question of deadline lies a debate over what type of rent regulation New York should have.

"Is an on-time bill better than a stronger bill?" asked Democratic Sen. Liz Krueger, a major supporter of strengthening rent laws. "No. I would prefer to have the better bill."

A Question of Urgency

Over the weekend Republicans quietly introduced an extender that would keep rent laws in place until Friday -- Republicans want session to end on Friday despite Monday being scheduled as a legislative day. So far, neither the Assembly nor Cuomo has expressed support for te extender. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he hopes that a deal can be reached on the rents laws without any extender.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, whose conference opposes any tightening of rent laws, has insisted that it is not important whether the laws are renewed before the deadline.

On June 6 Senate Skelos told reporters there has so far only been "very, very preliminary discussions," about rent laws. "Nothing of real substance," he said before noting the deadline is June 15 -- "next Wednesday, that's an eternity away."

Sen. Adriano Espaillat called Skelos' comment that the laws need not be renewed before June 15, "tragic. I think it is like yelling 'Fire!' in a theater. It is almost like inciting a riot." Asked what would happen if the laws were not extended, Espaillat said, "We will be in uncharted waters. … I would say shark infested waters."

"I could not disagree more strongly with Sen. Skelos," said Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who says he has about 72,000 units of rent controlled housing in his district. "This is about millions of New Yorkers losing their homes, this is not something to be played with. This could have an impact of a crisis level on the state."

Rivera said he thinks any lapse in the laws would be felt immediately. "When you have a law that expires, it can no longer be implemented, so therefore you have landlords who can move forward without the protections rent regulation allows. They can start kicking people out, raising rent. When you have a family that is barely able to make it and all of a sudden they are asked to pay twice, three times their rent, which is no longer regulated because the roof has come off, what happens?"

Calls for Calm

Krueger disagrees. She said she doubts many leases expire on June 15, and even if they did, when an agreement on rent laws is reached any regulation could be made retroactive.

Tenant advocates like Michael McKee, treasurer for Tenants PAC, are advising people not to panic, "We have been here before; people forget that the laws expired in 1997. They lapsed for five days and the sky did not fall; they passed it retroactively," said McKee.

McKee thinks Skelos wants to get tenants worked up and frightened so that they will demand that Democratic legislators simply accept a straightforward renewal, without any stronger protections for tenants. The real estate industry, which is close to the Senate Republicans, wants a straightforward extension -- nothing more.

Upstate Sen. Catharine Young, who chairs the housing committee, told NY1 that the changes Democrats want would amount to "giving special privileges, benefits and enrichments to very wealthy people." Young has sponsored legislation that would weaken the current rent laws.

McKee and tenant advocates as well as Democratic legislators from the city don't want to settle for simple renewal. Most importantly they want to make it more difficult for landlords to remove apartments from the rent control system.

"We need the laws strengthened, we need to end vacancy decontrol, step up enforcement so that landlords can just stop registering and say they spent the money and raise the rent so the apartment is no longer on the rolls," McKee said. "Who knows how many apartments we have lost to fraud."

Currently, landlords remove their apartments from regulation by claiming they have invested in major improvements. McKee says the law does not require any confirmation that the upgrades have been made.

"If all they do is renew it and raise the cap a little, we will scream bloody murder," says McKee. "We will not be nice if that is all they do-- especially because not one has talked to us."

The Governor's Stand

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has insisted he is for stronger rent laws, but he has refused to publicly state specifically what he supports. Espaillat said Cuomo had assured him that the governor fully supports extending and strengthening the laws.

Last week black and Hispanic lawmakers criticized Cuomo for skipping a tenants rally in the city. Cuomo responded by recording a robocall encouraging tenants to call their lawmakers and tell them to support renewing and strengthening rent laws. It isn't clear which legislators were targeted with the calls.

This, though. did not exactly satisfy the disgruntled lawmakers. They say Cuomo could have dealt with rent regulation earlier in the year and are annoyed that he did not make it a priority during his state tour.

Tenant advocates say that with less than a week left in the session, Cuomo has very few remaining chances to establish credibility as a Democrat who supports progressive causes. They say his reputation as a Democrat relies on the passage of marriage equality and rent laws. However, this week passage of same-sex marriage seems much more likely, and some advocates and legislators worry that Cuomo may feel that a win on that will be enough to satisfy Democrats.

City legislators privately say will risk losing their support if Cuomo does not deliver on the rent issue. Given the the amount of popular approval, Cuomo enjoys a loss of backing from a handful of Democrats might have little effect. Nevertheless there are indicators that Cuomo takes rent control very seriously.

Earlier this month Cuomo, Skelos and Silver reportedly met with representatives of the real estate industry, including members of the Real Estate Board of New York and the Rent Stabilization Association. Representatives from REBNY and the RSA did not return calls for comment.

Tenant advocates have heard that Cuomo told industry people, "You have had your way for 18 years, and things are going to change."

Tenant advocates don't know what to make of that. "The reports were that the governor was very forceful," said McKee, "but we don’t know what that really means -- we haven't heard anything from the second floor [the governor's office], we have not been involved in negotiations."

Linkage

Democratic legislators would have liked Cuomo to have acted on rent regulation earlier in the year when he could have used the budget as leverage.

Instead the issue has become tied up with the tax cap. The Republican-controlled senate has already passed Cuomo's version of the cap -- with no link to rent regulation -- but the Assembly refused to move on it. Last month Silver and Cuomo announced they had reached a deal that would enact a property tax cap that would remain in effect only as long as rent regulation stayed in place. Skelos was not pleased. Skelos has said that a putting a sunset date on the tax cap is a deal killer.

While his constituents clearly favor a cap, Skelos may privately wonder whether it is really the best way to deal with rising property taxes. "Who knows what Skelos wants?" said McKee, "They say he doesn't really want a cap-- he wants ... the Assembly to take the blame when it fails."

Krueger takes Skelos at face value. "There was some confusion earlier in the year, but Dean has been very firm that he wants this legislation. His house has passed it, and he wants the Assembly to do the same," she said.

Krueger says it does not matter that "at this point in time that I don’t think a tax cap is good public policy." People in the state seem to want one and she represents a district that has no stake in the issue."

Krueger seems to think a trade is in order. "I think there are a lot of parallels between the bills," she said. "They say the communities outside of the big cities need a tax cap, the Senate has passed it, the governor supports it and the people want them to deliver. We say we need rent laws for the five boroughs, the Assembly has passed it, the governor supports it and the people want it."

But advocates whisper that Skelos is holding out for a bigger reward to strengthen rent laws. They note that the Republican majority has benefited greatly from the financial support of the real estate industry. McKee says the only thing that has done more to keep Senate Republicans in the majority over the last few decades is their ability to draw district lines.

"What Skelos wants the most is to keep his lines the same. He wants to keep being able to gerrymander; he wants to make sure there is no independent redistricting. It is the only way they will keep the majority," McKee said.

The effort to pass an independent redistricting bill has stalled in the Senate, as Skelos has insisted that a bill would be unconstitutional and that a constitutional amendment is necessary. Cuomo, meanwhile, has pledged to veto any lines that are drawn unfairly. It is impossible to say how -- or even if -- all of these issues are connected. But at this point in session, it seems unlikely that negotiations over any important legislation are entirely self contained.

With only a few days left Democratic legislators and progressive groups say Cuomo has to use his power to buck Skelos and pass a rent law that extends controls and dramatically strengthens the law to make it harder for landlords to deregulate apartments.

"Andrew has the chance to be the leader of the Democratic Party," said McKee. "Andrew has a chance to do something Democratic, unlike what he has done up to now, which has been very Republican. He has a chance to do something for the Democrats with rent. I hope the governor keeps his promise."



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