CityPHEPS Rental Vouchers Are Flawed, and That’s Okay

Landlords and the state comptroller don’t see eye to eye on the city’s $1.2 billion rental voucher system.

Landlords say voucher placements are often denied because of small infractions like a cracked outlet plate or a window guard missing one screw.

Yet a comptroller’s audit last week warned that vouchers are being approved for apartments with “serious hazards” like a defective window guard and roach infestations.

Both sides are correct, but the comptroller needs a reality check.

In a program this large, some inspectors will be human and others will be hard-asses. The humans approve tenant placements in units with violations. The hard-asses reject apartments for technical reasons, leaving desperate families in the shelter system and landlords furious.

The audit noted that some voucher users end up switching apartments because their first one has problems. This costs the city money. But it would cost a lot more — and hurt families — to reduce transfers by disqualifying more apartments.

Rule of thumb: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. (In this column, I explained why zero fraud is a bad goal.)

The audit said the city should disqualify all of a landlord’s buildings just because some have serious violations. That’s absurd. It’s increasingly difficult to know if a building’s problems are because of a bad landlord or because the HSTPA and Rent Guidelines Board starved it of revenue.

The audit says voucher holders should not be moved into units with roaches. Roaches are disgusting. But they are not as dangerous as homelessness.

If the city kicked out tenants from all apartments with roaches, people would go ballistic and the shelter population would skyrocket. Of course the city doesn’t do that. Why should it treat voucher users any differently?

To an auditor poring over paperwork, a defective window guard sounds like a life-threatening hazard. But in reality it probably means a few loose screws that can be tightened in seconds. One landlord said a single missing screw cost him a voucher tenant.

Even if a window guard is broken, a new one costs only $40 and can be installed faster than an inspector can complete a rejection form. Most landlords have spare window guards on hand.

I don’t think State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, or Kenrick Sifontes, who directed the audit, would want to tell homeless families they can’t move into an apartment because one window guard was missing a screw at inspection.

A lot is at stake for landlords, tenants and taxpayers. CityPHEPS vouchers were a $1.2 billion program last fiscal year. The City Council is suing to force the city to spend even more.

Before being elected, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he would stop fighting the lawsuit, but he hasn’t yet. His budget office might advise him to keep litigating or settle rather than lose billions of dollars for his other priorities. Whatever happens, he is sure to increase voucher spending.

That could reduce homelessness, allowing the mayor to shift some of the Department of Homeless Services’ $4 billion budget to permanent housing.

Apartments are much cheaper than shelters and hotels. However, if left vacant in a quest for perfection, they are useless.

DiNapoli’s audit has good suggestions about improving oversight and record-keeping. But the notion that the city should only place voucher users in pristine apartments owned by landlords with spotless records is unrealistic.