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.
Dixon cited the Justice-Involved Supportive Housing program, known as JISH. According to Dixon’s piece, the Mayor’s Office reports that 87 percent of JISH residents had no arrests while in supportive housing, and half have lived in their homes for six to 10 years.
The city is expanding that housing. In January 2026, Mayor Zohran Mamdani restarted the Just Home program at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, which provides 83 permanent apartments for formerly incarcerated New Yorkers with complex medical needs. The program had been stalled under the previous administration. On February 12, the NYC Health Department released an updated request for proposals to expand JISH, with $4.8 million in new funding and capacity for up to 190 additional apartments. That would bring the program’s total to more than 350 homes.
Federal policy threatens that expansion. In November 2025, HUD released a funding notice that would have capped permanent supportive housing at 30 percent of Continuum of Care spending, a category that accounts for 87 percent of the program. A coalition of attorneys general from 20 states filed suit and obtained a preliminary injunction blocking the cap. Congress included protective provisions in the FY2026 appropriations bill, but the litigation is ongoing.
Formerly incarcerated New Yorkers and their families can invoke Local Law 132 directly with a caseworker, or contact the Corporation for Supportive Housing or the Supportive Housing Network of New York for guidance. The law applies to time spent in a city jail, state prison, or residential mental health facility.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily
