NY Opens Section 8 Waitlists for Dozens of Buildings This Week: Here’s What You Need to Know

New York State’s Department of Housing and Community Renewal last opened its Project-Based Section 8 waitlist in 2021. The lists, which will close again on July 24, offer very low-income New Yorkers a chance to secure affordable housing at specific properties with vacancies.

Waitlists for affordable housing at 27 properties across the five boroughs opened on July 13, giving thousands of New Yorkers an opportunity at securing a federally-backed Section 8 rental voucher.

New York State’s Department of Housing and Community Renewal opened the waitlist for more than two dozen buildings Monday, and will accept new applications until the end of next week. The last time the state agency reopened its Project-Based Section 8 waitlist was in 2021.

The project-based vouchers are tied to specific units in pre-selected properties. Residents can find a list of buildings and the types of size and type of apartment here, and can apply through DHCR’s MyHousing Portal. Since each property has its own waitlist, households can apply to multiple properties’ waitlists until the application period closes at 5 p.m. next Friday, July 24.

Demand for affordable housing is high—as is demand for rental assistance. Two years ago, the New York City Housing Authority reopened its waitlist for Section 8 housing choice vouchers after 15 years of inactivity; in one week, over 630,000 New Yorkers vied for 200,000 waitlist positions, which were selected via lottery. Section 8 voucher holders pay 30 percent of their income on rent, and the subsidy covers the rest.

Of the 27 properties with open waitlists this week, about half are specifically targeted at applicants who are above age 62. Households applying for any of the available waitlists must earn at or below 50 percent of the Area Median Income; a single person would qualify with an income at or below $59,400, for example, and the total income for a family of six could not exceed $98,400. 

Applicants will be placed on waitlists by a lottery system, and then sorted by age and household size. Getting on the waitlist is still no guarantee that someone will actually get a voucher or an apartment, and how long someone spends on a waitlist depends on the turnover rate at each property and the size of the unit that the household is seeking, among other factors. 

HCR did not state how many applicants will be selected for waitlists after this week’s opening, nor how long the new waitlists are expected to be.

According to the Metropolitan Council on Housing, there are approximately 90,000 project-based Section 8 apartments in New York City. Participating properties are privately owned, while HCR manages resident vouchers and oversees management and rents, as designated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Project-based vouchers differ from a more common type of Section 8 subsidy, known as Housing Choice Vouchers, which voucher holders can use to help pay the rent at apartments they search out for themselves on the private market. Those searches can be tough in a city where low-cost rentals are exceedingly difficult to find. 

By contrast, project-based subsidies are tied to specific apartments, which are filled by tenants from the building’s waitlist whenever a unit opens up. The 27 properties for which people can apply this week “have smaller waiting lists and are more likely to require applicants in the near future,” according to HCR. 

In general, according to the Mayor’s Management Report, project-based vouchers have “faster processing and leasing times because eligible households are matched directly with available units and do not need to identify housing on their own.”

Additional reporting by Patrick Spauster.

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