CityFHEPS Voucher Holders & Legal Aid Sue to Preserve Landlord Incentive

After the city suddenly cancelled an incentive for landlords to hold units for families with vouchers covering one month s rent while the subsidy application is processed families in shelter and legal groups won a temporary court order to keep it alive A rental building in The Bronx Photo by Adi Talwar On July the Montanez family will mark a somber anniversary Milagro Montanez her husband and her high-school aged daughter will have been living in a homeless shelter in Park Slope Brooklyn for two years They are three of the people living in New York City s shelters People like us just want an apartment That s all we want revealed Montanez The good news they have a city-issued housing voucher The bad news it s been really hard to use function d u ac var s d createElement 'script' s type 'text javascript' s src 'https a omappapi com app js api min js' s async true s dataset user u s dataset campaign ac d getElementsByTagName 'head' appendChild s document 'u kmqsczew vunxutxmd' Between discrimination against voucher holders a tight housing territory and a frustrating application process it can take months to find an apartment with a CityFHEPS voucher plus more time for the city to process an application As City Limits first broadcasted the city eliminated a provision intended to make the process smoother in late May For leases starting before July of this year the city would pay landlords one month s rent to hold the unit while it inspected the premises and processed the application New leases would no longer get the payment Landlords brokers lawyers and tenants reported City Limits that eliminating the payment would make it harder for landlords to take vouchers The Legal Aid Society sued last week The group argued that in terminating the incentive with little notice and no opportunity for society comment the Department of Social Services DSS violated the city s administrative rules and procedures The decision lacked any stated rationale and will cause homeless individuals and families to spend additional months in shelter at substantially increased costs to the City itself the lawsuit read The city provided absolutely no rationale for this decision which rescinds a long standing extremely effective plan mentioned Pavita Krishnaswamy supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society who is arguing the development in court Earlier this month a DSS spokesperson described City Limits that the incentive which has been in operation since at least was dependably going to be temporary They added that it was being terminated as part of a cost-cutting budget plan as the city rolled out a new application content system that it hoped would cut processing times Friday Judge Lyle L Frank issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits the city from ending the unit hold incentive until he can review the merits of the situation On my desk right now I have more lost apartments and more people in protracted move-ins than ever before So this was a very inopportune and inconvenient and horrible even tragic time to take away the unit hold incentive added Stephanie Rudolph a lawyer who works with housing voucher holders at Legal Aid Both DSS and the New York City Law Department declined to comment on the ongoing litigation In March the Montanez family revealed an apartment in Midtown that would rent to them But they ve been stuck in the application process since Now I m scared that I m gonna lose this apartment because it s already been five months stated Montanez Housing advocates at a rally outside City Hall in to call for expanding CityFHEPS Gerardo Romo NYC Council Media Unit A frustrating application process Montanez is an assistant lecturer and her husband works at Amazon They make around a month not enough to afford an apartment in the city and feed their family without help CityFHEPS vouchers require families to pay percent of their income toward rent The city picks up the rest But that calculation gets complicated when low-income families like the Montanezes work multiple jobs with variable hours Sometimes a coach is out and Montanez works more Particular days work at the Amazon warehouse is slow Other days her husband gets -hour shifts Nobody works a job that is steadily an even number every single time A check goes up a check goes down mentioned Montanez Each time a family s income changes the city requirements to recalculate the tenant contribution and issue a new shopping letter a document that lets them search for an apartment with the promise of a voucher Reprocessing applications can delay move-ins and frustrate landlords and tenants alike Rebudgeting has lost Montanez s family six apartments in the two years she s been looking she says How plenty of times do we have to get re-budgeted just to get approved for this requested Montanez She determined landlords willing to take their voucher in New Lots in East New York by Church Avenue s G stop and on President Street in Brooklyn but lost them all That President Street apartment really hurt that because the landlord was so sweet with us He was like I want you people to be here ' Montanez commented But delays with the family s voucher application meant he d be forgoing months of rent He tried his best to hold it disclosed Montanez He s not going to hold an apartment for months without rent That s not being money hungry It s called common sense While still variable DSS recounted City Limits the average processing time was about three weeks A review from State Comptroller Thomas Dinapoli detected cases where it took up to months DSS has disputed the findings of the analysis Department of Homeless Services approves the CityFHEPS Human Guidance Administration sends the checks So how is it that you re not working together requested Montanez Please make it make sense DSS which oversees both DHS and HRA says that new details systems will help reduce the time it takes to process a voucher application The spokesperson explained that percent of applications were being processed by the new system called CurRent We are not seeing the improvements that they are claiming explained Krishnaswamy Lawyers who work with tenants on voucher applications were skeptical of the city s stated reasons for cutting the plan It s frankly absurd declared Rudolph This claim that the unit hold incentive is somehow not going to become necessary because they have become so efficient A for rent sign in Brooklyn Photo by Jeanmarie Evelly Sticks and carrots Certain brokers and landlords are also concerned about the simultaneous loss of the unit hold incentive with the implementation of the FARE act new measure that requires whoever hires the broker to pay the broker s fee Previously when a landlord hired a broker and accepted a tenant with a CityFHEPS voucher the city would pay half the broker s fee if there was one Since low income tenants can t afford to hire brokers themselves the loss of city contributions to broker fees could be another expense that potentially discourages landlords from participating in the effort The city did not respond by the time of publication to whether or not it will continue to contribute to broker s fees for apartments leased with CityFHEPS The FARE act took aim at brokers who would collect large fees from incoming tenants without doing much work sometimes asking for thousands of dollars just for opening the door to show an apartment But unlike leasing to market-rate tenants brokers working with a voucher must coordinate with city agencies housing specialists and tenants sometimes for months to get approved for the venture They re doing a lot of work and should be paid for it in my opinion announced Rudolph Landlords have to wait for the city to process applications and submit the apartment to an inspection Sometimes that requires forgoing months of rent from a cash tenant But once complete a voucher is guaranteed rent And until in recent weeks owners and brokers would get a hold incentive or collect a fee I think we need to balance the sticks and the carrots mentioned Rudolph Searching for housing with a voucher is already taxing I can t even look for a job because I m constantly looking for apartments mentioned Montanez The vouchers only pay so much for a family of three searching for a two-bedroom in making it hard to access certain neighborhoods A February City Limits analysis determined that voucher holders were concentrated in just a scant parts of the five boroughs The Bronx had percent of CityFHEPS vouchers but just percent of the city s population Housing specialists social workers who help people in shelters find apartments with vouchers suggested units in the Bronx or Queens Montanez reported But she sought Brooklyn I want to be where my family and I are able to commute to work my daughter s school things like that If I want that then I have to look on my own she announced Rudolph thinks financial incentives for landlords gave voucher holders more options In certain neighborhoods brokers rarely get percent of the annualized rent as a broker fee Rudolph commented A competitive edge for voucher holders can help level the playing field It really does motivate certain brokers and landlords to work together to get people with programs Judge Frank s order extends the unit hold incentive through at least Aug when he scheduled another court appearance For now it provides specific relief for voucher holders and lawyers for whom the loss of the hold incentive threatened negotiations with landlords leasing for July or August Lawyers for Legal Aid are optimistic that Judge Frank will see the importance of the issue for getting homeless New Yorkers housed in a time of problem An agency doesn t get to engage in this kind of action with absolutely no reason provided then ex post facto or after the fact say to you to the media or to anybody else Oh this was genuinely our rationale ' explained Krishnaswamy Montanez hopes that if the incentive persists it will make their prospective landlord more likely to keep holding their apartment for them We re good people We work hard we pay taxes and we re still getting the short end of the stick she explained To reach the reporter behind this story contact Patrick citylimits org To reach the editor contact Jeanmarie citylimits org Want to republish this story Find City Limits reprint agenda here The post CityFHEPS Voucher Holders Legal Aid Sue to Preserve Landlord Incentive appeared first on City Limits