How frustrating can the rental voucher system be?
Consider this email that a PR person received last year from a client. (For privacy reasons, the names have been changed.)
I’m reaching out to see if you can help point me in the right direction. I volunteer at a homeless respite bed shelter.
We have a couple, Mark and Josephine, who have been our guests for over a year as they try to find housing with a NYC voucher.
I’ve gotten to know them and have tremendous respect for their determination and how they’ve kept on an even keel and maintained their sense of humor and compassion for others despite their tough circumstances. They are lovely, responsible people whom I would be happy to have as my neighbors.
Mark and Josephine have now had two heartbreaking situations where an apartment they found has failed [Department of Homeless Services] inspection — the first because the bedroom was too small and now because the four exterior stairs lacked a railing.
The shelter offered to pay for a railing but the landlord wants nothing more to do with vouchers.
Finding an apartment within the voucher guidelines is extremely tough and as an interracial couple they have faced extra challenges, sadly. You can imagine how crushing it is to be on the verge of having a home only to have it fall through like this — twice.
Although the city says the average time from voucher eligibility to moving into an apartment is just 24 days, everyone who deals with vouchers has heard anecdotes about or experienced first-hand a bureaucratic, inflexible system. Jay Martin of the New York Apartment Association occasionally posts voucher horror stories on social media. In one case, he reported that a unit failed inspection because of a cracked outlet cover.
An outlet cover costs 79 cents at Ace Hardware and can be replaced in about 30 seconds. That’s not the problem. The problem is that rather than wait for another inspection, the landlord may rent the unit to someone else.
From the voucher holder’s perspective, that’s a disaster. Being homeless is a lot more dangerous than living with a cracked outlet cover.
Bedrooms are supposed to be at least 80 square feet. But for a homeless person, a 79-square-foot bedroom is far better than a shelter cot.
New York elected officials have devoted considerable time and effort to funding more rental vouchers and reducing discrimination against voucher holders by landlords and brokers. The City Council is fighting with Mayor Eric Adams, and state legislators are fighting with Gov. Kathy Hochul, over how much to spend on vouchers.
What if city and state officials put more energy into making vouchers easier for renters to use and landlords to accept? Perhaps regulations could be changed that allow the leasing process to go forward and minor problems to be fixed after voucher holders occupy a unit.
Making the system more flexible would be an easier lift than finding billions more dollars for vouchers in city and state budgets.
A spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, which includes the Department of Homeless Services, said in a statement, “Our process for connecting clients in the shelter system to permanent housing opportunities is focused on protecting [them] from prospective violations of tenant rights, and this includes rigorous inspections of the units (checking for conditions/disrepair) in question, and vetting the legitimacy of the landlord or leasing entity to avoid fraudulent practices.”
Reinspections are typically done within 72 hours, the spokesperson said.
What we’re thinking about: Will Legal Services of New York City try to show that Attorney General Letitia James’ Brooklyn rental building should have been rent-stabilized during the 24 years that she’s owned it? Send your thoughts to eengquist@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: A Parks Department employee trying to clear abandoned boats on or near the shoreline has found 78 of them, mostly 20- to 30-footers, in the past 12 months, the New York Times reported.
Elsewhere…
An apartment building developer with more than half a dozen large projects underway in New York City told me he can’t figure out what to build next.
Large, mixed-income projects don’t pencil out because future projects rely on the state’s new 485x tax break, which requires a high wage scale for developments of 100 or more units. He noted that rivals are planning a number of 99-unit or smaller projects, but he did not seem interested in using that strategy. (In any event, it’s not clear that any of them have landed a construction loan yet.)
The other option is to build affordable housing, but there’s a long wait for the necessary subsidies from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. A common estimate we hear is five years.
Closing time
Residential: The priciest residential sale Thursday was $12.5 million for a 3,889-square-foot, sponsor-sale condominium unit at 50 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side. Douglas Elliman’s Janice Chang and Timothy Hsu had the listing.
Commercial: The most expensive commercial closing of the day was $10.5 million for a 7,065-square-foot retail property at 32 East 69th Street in Lenox Hill.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $75 million for a 6,500-square-foot condominium unit at 551 West 21st Street in Chelsea. Clayton Orrigo of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has the listing.
Breaking Ground: The largest new building application filed was for a proposed 71,126-square-foot, three-story commercial project at 21 Wythe Avenue in Greenpoint. Nikolai Katz filed the permit on behalf of Sam Teitelbaum.
— Matthew Elo
