Renting vacated, affordable apartments through the city’s housing lottery is about to get easier — but you’ll have to be fast to nab one.
For the next year, the city’s housing department will waive bureaucratic rules on how landlords have to get new tenants into empty affordable-housing units.
Starting May 1 through April 30, 2026, landlords and brokers will be able to advertise those apartments publicly, on websites like Streeteasy or Craigslist, on the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s website or on other platforms.
Meanwhile, eligible apartment-seekers will be able to apply directly — instead of going through the city’s lottery system, known as Housing Connect — and landlords or brokers will be able to process those applications in a first-come, first-served order.
After the landlord or broker verifies the applicant’s eligibility, the applicant can submit their information to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development for approval. If approved, the tenant can move in.
The new process, which also applies to subsidized properties for sale through the lottery, is meant to remove red tape that’s led to hundreds of affordable apartments sitting vacant for months and has kept much-needed housing off the market. It’s one of several ways HPD plans to streamline the process of applying to and securing income-restricted subsidized housing, according to officials.
“We are rolling out regularly, and especially right now, a whole suite of changes and updates to make the entire process of getting into affordable housing easier and faster,” said Emily Osgood, HPD’s associate commissioner. “When it comes specifically to re-rentals and resale units, we find the way it’s set up doesn’t get people right when they are, where they are, connected to the unit that is perfect to them that they want.”
During the period when HPD waives its re-rental and re-sale rules, the agency will work on upgrading Housing Connect and what’s required for its affordable housing lottery process.
Quicker Turnaround
Currently, to secure a spot in an affordable apartment, New Yorkers must apply through the lotteries listed on Housing Connect. But when a tenant leaves one of those lottery apartments and it becomes available again, the process to fill it gets more complicated. Between 2% and 5% of affordable apartments each year become available in this way, according to HPD.
To fill the vacancies, landlords of buildings with affordable apartments have had to do a “mini-lottery” from a pool of applicants — those who registered in Housing Connect and indicated they would be interested in future re-rental opportunities. As of April 2024, that’s about 800,000 people, according to HPD.
But the landlords had no way of marketing the vacant apartments on Housing Connect or elsewhere to alert would-be tenants about availability. Though the system was intended to fill the affordable apartments in an equitable manner, landlords found it hard to get a match for a vacant apartment, as the applicants in the pool never indicated they would want to move at the time the apartment became available, or might not have been interested in the apartment.
In this way, hundreds — or more — affordable apartments remained empty for months after previous tenants moved out, a February report by the New York Housing Conference found.
“It was leading to long-time vacancies, loss of revenue for owners and this delayed access of New Yorkers getting into affordable housing,” said Rachel Fee, executive director of the Conference. “We’re hopeful the city will make changes to Housing Connect that will make it easier to rent up the units and be a better system for the renters applying.”
HPD will perform audits of applicant logs to make sure landlords and brokers are processing applicants for re-rentals on a first-come, first-served basis.
Kevin Kiprovski, director of public policy for LiveOn NY, which represents a coalition of providers for senior housing, said he’s heard a lot of complaints about the re-rental rules.
“You have someone who passes away and even when [the housing providers] have done everything they need to do to make the apartment rentable again, restrictions with the affordable housing process means they can’t rent it out because they need to follow the bureaucratic requirements that have nothing to do with the readiness of the place to be rented,” he said. “We do hope changes like this and the discussion on reforming how these rules are put into place can help people get into the affordable housing they need much quicker.”
In addition to the new re-rental policy, HPD will reduce the amount and types of documentation an applicant needs to provide to verify their eligibility — such as income, household size, and other factors — when they are contacted for an affordable apartment through the lottery. The intention is to cut down on redundant information and back-and-forth.
“We’re cutting to the absolutely essential information to make sure we’re being responsible with public resources and getting housing to people who need it,” said Osgood, of HPD, “but also not burdening New Yorkers in the eligibility process.”
Our nonprofit newsroom relies on donations from readers to sustain our local reporting and keep it free for all New Yorkers. Donate to THE CITY today.
The post Vacant Affordable Apartments to Now Skip Lottery and Be Filled on First-Come, First-Served Basis appeared first on THE CITY – NYC News.
