For the first time in 15 years, New York City has added 200,000 households to a waitlist for obtaining federal housing vouchers that can be used to rent private apartments, city officials announced.
The 200,000 families were randomly selected from over 600,000 households who applied for the limited number of coveted waitlist spots when the city was accepting applications between June 3-9, according to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).
The public housing agency, which administers the federal program, is currently notifying the chosen households who applied whether or not they were added to the waitlist — first via email and then followed by paper mail.
In a statement, Adams said he reopened the waitlist, which has been closed since 2009, as one method of addressing the city’s acute housing shortage.
“The message is clear: New Yorkers need affordable housing and they it need now,” Adams said, in a statement. “That’s why we were proud to announce in our State of the City address that after 15 years, the Section 8 waitlist would finally reopen to the general public this year. NYCHA will begin the work of issuing housing vouchers, providing much-needed relief to families searching for affordable housing.”
However, it will be a “lengthy process” to distribute vouchers to all of the households newly added to the waitlist, according to NYCHA. That is because the agency has a goal of distributing up to 1,000 vouchers a month depending on its funding levels and voucher capacity.
Furthermore, nabbing a spot on the waitlist does not necessarily mean the family will get a voucher, since the public housing authority must still confirm their eligibility, the agency said.
Households who are notified they have been added to the waitlist will be able to create an online profile and follow their application on NYCHA’s Self-Service Portal. NYCHA will then contact those families to complete the application process, which includes submitting their proof of income.
Even after obtaining a voucher, families will need to find available apartments in a city where just 1.4% of rental units were vacant last year. Additionally, there are still many landlords who refuse to rent to voucherholders — an illegal practice called source-of-income discrimination.
Section 8 is a federal housing subsidy program aimed at very low-income families that fit certain criteria, and current public housing residents.
Currently, NYCHA’s Section 8 program is being utilized by 214,117 households, according to the agency. NYCHA has worked to clear the waitlist since it stopped accepting new applicants in 2009, the city says, issuing vouchers to 7,538 families last year.
Meanwhile, the mayor is also seeking to combat the city’s lack of affordable housing by advancing a suite of zoning changes known as the “City of Yes: Zoning for Economic Opportunity.” The zoning text amendment includes changes meant to boost housing production like eliminating a requirement that residential buildings have below-ground parking and allowing developers to build at least 20% more housing as long as those units are affordable.
The package will recieve a vote from the City Planning Commission in the coming weeks and then will go before the City Council this fall.
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