Two leaders of The Bronx Defenders are pressing Mayor Zohran Mamdani to pour more money into the city’s legal aid system and fix the way it pays the nonprofits that run it, arguing that funding one piece of the safety net while starving the rest leaves low-income New Yorkers exposed. Their case landed in a June 4 op-ed in City Limits, written as the mayor’s proposed budget moved toward a final vote.

The authors are Juval O. Scott, executive director of The Bronx Defenders, and Samantha Espada, president of the group’s chapter of UAW-ALAA Local 2325, the union that represents legal aid workers. Their argument is about coverage. When someone poor hits a legal crisis, they wrote, it rarely stays in one courtroom.

“An arrest can lead to eviction. A family court case can destabilize housing and income. An immigration case can trigger detention, family separation, and economic collapse,” they wrote. “What begins in one legal system often spirals into another.”