Expanding a New York City program to help struggling tenants pay rent seemed like an obvious campaign promise for Zohran Mamdani, who staked his insurgent candidacy last year on making life more affordable in the five boroughs.

Now, confronting a grim fiscal picture in his second month as mayor, Mr. Mamdani no longer intends to back the growth of the $1 billion-plus initiative known as CityFHEPS, despite a plan passed by the City Council and upheld in court.

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During a recent news conference, as the mayor lamented a looming budget deficit that on Wednesday he pegged at $7 billion over two years, he suggested the program’s full expansion may be too expensive.

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CityFHEPS is one of the largest rental assistance programs in the nation and works similarly to the Section 8 housing voucher program. Renters contribute 30 percent of their income to rent, with the city covering the rest.

As the city’s affordable housing shortage has worsened, its cost has grown substantially, from about $25 million in 2019 to more than $1.2 billion in 2025.

Most of that increase took place before the Council passed its expansion into law in 2023. The legislation made people eligible for vouchers if they had received written demands from their landlords for rent owed and raised the income level for voucher eligibility.

“This program is growing at an unsustainable clip,” said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan budget watchdog, which has raised concerns about the program’s cost for years.

Mr. Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, said he would not enforce most of the bills passed by the Council, citing worries about their cost. When Legal Aid, representing tenants, brought a lawsuit to compel Mr. Adams to implement the laws, he fought back.

As a candidate, Mr. Mamdani admonished Mr. Adams for the pushback. “What a ridiculous waste of time during a housing crisis,” Mr. Mamdani said in a social media post last July, when he was the Democratic nominee for mayor.

“Zohran will drop lawsuits against CityFHEPs and ensure expansion proceeds as scheduled and per city law,” his campaign website read.

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By moving to settle the lawsuit, Mr. Mamdani is signaling he will not comply with the bills the Council passed into law to widen the program.

City officials are projecting that even without the expansion, the program will cost nearly $2.4 billion more than Mr. Adams budgeted for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends June 30, and the next one.