The Real Estate Board of New York to The City Council Committee on General Welfare regarding CityFHEPS

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The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) is the City’s leading real estate trade association representing commercial, residential, and institutional property owners, builders, managers, investors, brokers, salespeople, and other organizations and individuals active in New York City real estate. REBNY appreciates this opportunity to voice full support for the legislation before the Council today regarding the administration and management of CityFHEPS vouchers.

New York City is amid a well-documented housing crisis, with the lowest vacancy rate on record since 1968. While we need more housing to help solve that problem, the housing crisis is also one of affordability. Housing vouchers in New York City are pivotal in mitigating homelessness, increasing housing stability, and improving long-term health, social, and economic outcomes for adults and children. We are incredibly fortunate to have a City-funded voucher program, and one where the value of those vouchers meets fair market rents. However, New York City’s current administration of its housing voucher programs is flawed, and voucher holders regularly find their housing opportunities limited.

Among the many challenges with the current voucher system is that it does not set voucher holders up for success in their apartment search and keeps families in shelters longer. When competing for an apartment in a supply-limited marketplace, voucher holders are at a disadvantage compared with non-voucher holders due to approval delays, requests for additional or redundant paperwork, and bureaucratic hurdles such as a lengthy, unpredictable inspection process.

New Yorkers deserve a functional voucher system that efficiently and effectively places families in homes and keeps them housed. To advocate for such a system, in 2024, Women in Need (Win) and REBNY co-authored the report Housing More New Yorkers to leverage our collective insights and experiences with the challenges besetting the City’s voucher programs. We all share a common goal: improving the voucher process and helping voucher holders find stable housing.

To that end, our organizations outlined policy changes that need to address the following:

• Reduce delays that prevent voucher holders from securing housing;

• Eliminate confusion and inconsistencies regarding voucher programs;

• Move past outdated processes and utilize a digital portal to improve the process;

• Enhance outreach and coordination to prevent source-of-income discrimination; and

• Streamline the City’s affordable housing lottery to get voucher holders into new units faster.

The bills under consideration today address core challenges in the existing bureaucracy around processing CityFHEPS vouchers:

• Intro 0098 (Brewer) would institutionalize best practices around inspections by requiring the Department of Social Services to clearly delineate major versus minor areas of concern, allowing quicker mitigation and resolution of minor concerns so a family can move in faster. Creating an online portal for use by the agency, tenant, and property owner will increase transparency and ensure accountability for addressing issues in a timely manner.

• Intro 0100 (Brewer) would require the agency to track and report to the Mayor and Council, and include in the Mayor’s Management Report, the average length of time it takes to secure housing after receiving a voucher. This will allow stakeholders to learn, for the first time, how many voucher holders search for apartments each year.

• Intro 0101 (Brewer) would require a City agency to respond to a voucher applicant within 15 days with a decision on voucher approval, disapproval, or missing information, giving applicants greater clarity and reducing unnecessary delays.

• Intro 0641 (Restler) would further improve the administration of CityFHEPS by requiring rental assistance payments to be made no later than seven days before the first day of the month to which they apply, providing greater predictability for property owners and helping ensure timely rent payments.

• Finally, T2026-1424 (Morano) would create a centralized portal for landlords participating in rental subsidy programs administered by DSS, where they could submit required documentation, enroll in electronic rental assistance payments, and report administrative issues. Requiring DSS to track and report on landlord complaints would also provide an additional mechanism for identifying recurring administrative barriers and improving the program over time.

We thank Councilmembers Brewer, Restler, and Morano, Speaker Menin and the City Council, and Chris Quinn of Win for their continued leadership to ensure that the CityFHEPS voucher program is a success for tenants who need housing and the property owners who house them. Thank you once again for allowing REBNY to submit testimony in support of these proposed bills.

CONTACT:
Kate Goldmann
Senior Housing and Planning Analyst
Real Estate Board of New York
kgoldmann@rebny.com