After New York State distributed just $40 million of $100 million in federal funds intended for struggling, low-income tenants, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday he would rework the program so that more renters would be eligible for help.

"We ran the program," Cuomo said. "The number of eligible applicants only brought us to $40 million in rental aid by the parameters of the law. By executive order, I'm going to change the law."

The language of the executive order has not been released, so it's unclear how the program would change.

But the governor said that the application window would be reopened and that the eligibility requirements, which were set by the state legislature, would be expanded to "help more New Yorkers."

The Legal Aid Society cautioned more details were needed to fully assess the changes.

"We welcome the news from Governor Cuomo that he will amend New York’s rent relief program to benefit more families in desperate need of housing assistance," Judith Goldiner, attorney-in-charge of the Civil Law Reform Unit at the Legal Aid Society, said in a statement. "However, the devil is in the details, and Albany has just weeks to recalibrate this program to ensure that $60 million in resources reaches New Yorkers facing eviction and homelessness."

A spokesperson for the state office of Homes and Community Renewal, which administers the program, said in a statement on behalf of the agency and the Governor's Office: "The program, with expanded eligibility, will be designed to meet the federal guidelines and deliver further resources to New Yorkers in need." A press release says more details will be available "in the coming days."

The eleventh-hour executive order comes weeks ahead of a federal deadline set by the Treasury Department for funds distributed by the CARES Act. The feds require costs to have been incurred by December 30th—a deadline that has sent officials across the country rushing to get the money distributed or risk returning it to the federal government. From those funds allocated for state and local governments, New York State got $5.1 billion, which could be spent on a laundry list of coronavirus costs during the health and economic crises.

From the federal money, up to $100 million was set aside for rent relief under guidelines set by state law—a measure criticized as inadequate and far from enough to address the crisis.

By late October, just under $40 million had been distributed or was set to be distributed to more than 15,000 landlords to help reduce how much tenants pay for rent.

Renters were assisted with a median rent award of about $1,900 across the five boroughs. The payments mitigate the cost of rent for up to four months.

The state has insisted the remaining money would be spent by the federal deadline.

"This crisis was wholly self-made, the result of Albany waiting until the last second to act and then doing so only in the face of headlines and public pressure," Goldiner added.

Some 57,000 tenants were rejected for the Homes and Community Renewal program, which required tenants to earn under 80% of the area median income—$90,960 for a family of four in NYC— and pay more than 30% of their income towards rent before the pandemic and when they applied.

Unemployment benefit income prevents some from qualifying—even though those benefits have since been drastically reduced. An additional $600 weekly pandemic jobless payments lapsed in late July. President Donald Trump extended similar pandemic payments for six weeks, but at $300 a week.

The strict guidelines were criticized by the Legal Aid Society, which pointed out other states reworked their rental assistance programs to ensure the money helped more people. Dozens of state lawmakers penned a letter to Cuomo, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie in late November demanding the program be altered to help out renters.

After a Gothamist reporter asked state officials about the rent program at a recent press conference, the secretary to the governor, Melissa DeRosa, said the parameters were being reevaluated.

"We're not sitting on the money. We want the money to go out to people who need it most," DeRosa told reporters. "We are going to reevaluate what the parameters are that the legislature put into law to see if there is anything we can do to get more money out to the people who need it."

She added, "It's something that we’re looking at and we’re consulting with the legislative leaders on, but no money will be returned to the federal government."

State Senator Brian Kavanagh, a Manhattan and Brooklyn lawmaker who sponsored the bill to implement the rent relief, said last month he was committed to ensuring the funds were spent on rental assistance, as his legislation intended. The state senator declined comment through a spokesperson on Thursday as details were being worked out.

In New York, layered protections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a state law expanded by executive order can help prevent tenants from being evicted due to financial hardship from COVID-19. Some of those protections expire at the end of the year. Despite those protections and a drop in eviction filings compared to last year, days before Thanksgiving, a Brooklyn family was evicted under a holdover case from 2019, according to Law360.

Across the country, millions of people could lose unemployment benefits as federal payments for freelancers and gig workers as well as extended benefit programs expire by the end of the year. Congress has yet to pass another relief bill to solve the problem, but a less costly $908 billion version could be on the horizon.

Cuomo has endorsed that measure—but said it's far from adequate.

"I agree that, as Governor of New York, that we need help desperately and something is better than nothing and as a first down payment I urge them to get something done before they leave for Christmas," Cuomo said Wednesday. "They would then have to come back and do a real bill next year."

This article has been updated with a statement from Homes and Community Renewal.