Local Law 132 went into effect on March 12, 2026, requiring New York City to count time spent in jail, state prison, or a residential mental health facility toward supportive housing eligibility. The old policy treated incarceration as a break in homelessness and reset the eligibility clock for formerly incarcerated New Yorkers.

Under the previous rule, a person who was homeless before incarceration and then confined for 90 days or more lost their accumulated eligibility time upon release. The months spent in detention did not count, and returning New Yorkers had to start over. Local Law 132, originally introduced as Intro 1100 and sponsored by former Councilmember Carlina Rivera, directs the NYC Department of Social Services to count any period of involuntary confinement in a city jail, state prison, or residential mental health facility toward housing eligibility.

Backers of the legislation included the Corporation for Supportive Housing, Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the Supportive Housing Network of New York, and directly affected New Yorkers who testified in support. Delaine Dixon, a program analyst at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, wrote in a June 4 op-ed in the New York Amsterdam News that 2023 data showed one-third of people admitted to NYC jails were unhoused before incarceration, and that more than 40 percent of people released from state prisons to New York City entered shelters immediately. More than half of those detained at Rikers Island have a diagnosed mental illness, Dixon noted.