Housing affordability is a primary concern for all families living in New York City. Market rents have increased far beyond what low and moderate income New Yorkers can afford and the consequences have been an unprecedented number of families entering homeless shelters and living in overcrowded, doubled up, unsafe and expensive housing arrangements. The solution to New York City’s housing crisis is two-fold: a long term government investment in the development and preservation of affordable housing to address New York City’s housing shortage and the creation and expan- sion of rent assistance programs to help families afford permanent housing. This policy paper will focus on how city and state funded rent assistance can improve access to permanent housing by helping low income families, fami- lies at risk of eviction and families in shelter, afford New York City rents.

In recent years, New York State and New York City have created a number of rent assistance programs for families ineligible for federal Section 8 vouchers and for times when such assistance is unavailable. Although small in scale, these programs represent a critical policy shift by New York City and New York State that acknowledges an affordable housing crisis and the need to help low income and homeless families secure permanent housing and remain housed.

Beginning in 2000, CCC engaged in a two-part project to identify the availability of various rent assistance programs and outline the eligibility requirements for rent assistance available to families in New York City. CCC’s first report, Government Rent Subsidy Programs for Families in New York City, provided a basic guide to rent assistance programs for New York City families (Appendix A). While compiling this guide, a number of important questions arose about the availability of rent subsidies for families that need them. We found that rent assistance program eligibility criteria limited rent subsidies to families on public assistance, in homeless shelters, involved in the child welfare system or victims of domestic violence. This meant that every day thousands of low income families remained in doubled up and overcrowded housing arrangements and/or at risk of eviction, struggling to afford New York City’s high market rents on their own.

Findings from Phase One of this project compelled us to study how to make better use of rent assistance resources and improve the management of these programs to make certain that low income families that need rent assistance have the ability to access it. This report supple- ments findings from Phase One and concentrates specifically on program implementation policy and guide- lines that inadvertently make it difficult for low income and homeless families to access these subsidies.

To ensure that eligible families have access to rent assistance, several policy and program issues needed to be addressed in this report. Recommendations focus on two areas: city, state and federal policy changes needed to expand rent assistance eligibility and accessibility and program management and operation improvements to increase coordination and communication between and among government agencies and community based organizations.