The City Council took a key step on Thursday toward simplifying the onerous enrollment process for the city’s program that provides reduced-cost OMNY cards to very low-income riders: Fair Fares.
The council overwhelmingly passed a bill — Intro. 248 — requiring the city Department of Social Services (DSS), which oversees the Human Resources Administration (HRA) that runs the program, to streamline its current enrollment procedure. Transit and anti-poverty advocates have long argued that applying for Fair Fares creates a high barrier for working people with already limited time, as it requires them to fill out reams of paperwork and jump through several bureaucratic hoops.
