The city unveiled a new site as part of a program to boost affordable housing availability for homeless shelter residents.
It opened a 64-unit site in the Bronx’s Wakefield neighborhood last week, the seventh opening since the program’s launch two years ago. The site is part of a city initiative — dubbed the Affordable Housing Service — where the city foots most of the rent, Gothamist reported.
The program leans on holders of city rental assistance vouchers, known as CityFHEPS. Holders of the vouchers pay about 30 percent of their income towards rent, while the city picks up the rest. There are currently 11,000 voucher holders who are stuck in shelters due to a lack of housing or landlords who will take vouchers.
Under the program, the city contracts nonprofits to bring voucher holders to affordable housing developments. The idea is that affordable housing developers will have an easier time finding financing for projects because of a promised stream of reliable rent payments coming directly from the city.
Shelter residents are prioritized for this program, specifically those who have been in the system for at least two years or are at risk for a significant long-term stay.
“I don’t know of any other cities that are doing this,” Slate Property Group principal David Schwartz told Gothamis. “The only way out of this [housing] crisis is to build more housing and New York City’s figured out a tool to do it.”
More than 450 units have been delivered since the inception of the initiative. There are more than 500 units in the program’s pipeline, set to be delivered in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.
The program also enables the city to provide tenants support in applying for other services, such as food stamps, in an effort to keep them housed.
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