A Sense of Urgency: VOA-GNY Testimony on Improving CityFHEPS Rental Assistance
September 22, 2026—VOA-GNY submitted the following testimony at the NYC Council Committee on General Welfare:
Introduction and Thanks: My name is Eric Lee, and I am the Director of Public Policy for Volunteers of America- Greater New York (VOA-GNY). We are a local affiliate of the national organization, Volunteers of America, Inc (VOA). I would like to thank Chair Hudson and members of the General Welfare Committee for the opportunity to submit written testimony.
About Us: VOA-GNY is an anti-poverty organization that aims to end homelessness in Greater New York through housing, health and wealth building services. We are one of the region’s largest human service providers, impacting more than 12,000 adults and children annually through 70+ programs in New York City, Northern New Jersey, and Westchester. We are also an active nonprofit developer of supportive and affordable housing. VOA-GNY has a robust portfolio of permanent supportive housing, affordable and senior housing properties totaling over 2,100 beds—with over 2,700 more homes actively in the pipeline, the vast majority of which will be for low or extremely low-income individuals and families.
Background:
VOA-GNY has been providing shelter services to homeless families since 1991 when DHS first began contracting with nonprofits to do so. We operate 5 shelters for singles adults, 1 lowthreshold safe haven for individuals experiencing street homelessness, 7 shelters for families with children, and 7 HRA domestic violence shelters serving families and individuals fleeing domestic violence. VOA-GNY also operates a DHS Street to Home program which moves individuals experiencing unsheltered street homelessness directly into permanent supportive housing within 1 to 2 weeks of referral. Volunteers of America – Greater New York is a member of Homeless Services United, the Family Homelessness Coalition, and the Homes Can’t Wait Coalition.
Thank you, Chair Hudson and Member of the General Welfare Committee, for holding today’s hearing and your steadfast leadership on improving access to rental assistance vouchers. We greatly appreciate Speaker Menin and the entire City Council for your unwavering commitment to expanding eligibility for rental assistance, resulting in the creation of the new City Housing Assistance Program (CHAP). As New York City experiences a homelessness crisis and housing vacancy rates reach record lows, the Administration must use every tool in its belt to help preserve tenants’ housing and help people in shelter exit homelessness quicker.
CityFHEPS is one of the most effective tools to help people exit shelter and attain permanent housing, however the process is cumbersome and time-consuming.
Streamlining Eligibility for Rental Assistance:
Many families in shelter are unable to start the housing application process because they are stuck in conditional status, repeatedly reapplying at PATH every two weeks to affirm they are indeed homeless. Reapplying is disruptive to parents and their children, needing to either bring them with them or make childcare arrangements for what could well be an all-day appointment. While in conditional status, families are not eligible for key shelter resources like rental assistance vouchers as DHS still does not consider them technically homeless, even though they may be residing in shelter for months after repeated reapplications.
Int 232-2026 (Hudson): While not being heard today, VOA-GNY supports this legislation which would shorten the housing history requirement for PATH family intake to one year, down from two years. Families must document every single location they have resided in for the past two years, without missing a day. This can be especially challenging when bouncing between family members and friends’ places, and one gap in time could prevent them from being found eligible for shelter.
Int 816-2026 (Farias): Enabling families to self-attest their housing history will help shorten thefamily shelter intake process by eliminating the documentation requirement which can prolonga family’s conditional status. People come to shelter because they do not have anywhere else to turn, and families’ time would be better spent stabilizing and accessing resources like rental assistance to attain permanent homes.
By addressing shelter eligibility, these two pieces of legislation also address housing eligibility and can streamline access to permanent housing. Even after being found eligible for a CityFHEPS rental assistance voucher and identifying viable housing, our shelter staff report that applications can take two to four months to be approved. Far too many survivors in our HRA DV shelters unfortunately time out of DV shelter and must transition to a DHS shelter while their CityFHEPS application is still active, further prolonging their time in homeless and re-institutionalizing them.
HRA Benefits and Rental Assistance Staff and IT Systems must be well-resourced
Multiple factors can contribute to prolonged processing times.
Issues with HRA Public Assistance cases can complicate rental assistance packages, including errors in household compositions and delays in cash assistance (CA) rebudgets can create bottlenecks for pending applications. Households will go to HRA Benefits Access Centers inperson to be seen same-day, and documents uploaded to the AccessHRA application are sometimes not found and must be resubmitted. For one of our clients, even after going to the center to re-add her child to her CA case after HRA erroneously removed them, HRA still said it would take 7-10 business days to correct the error, regardless of her pending CityFHEPS application.
For households who earn too much for Cash Assistance, Single Issuance cases must be used to process their voucher application in HRA’s systems, but this mechanism is very fragile and time-limited and could prematurely close before the application is approved, forcing them back to square one. Shelter staff also note technical issues with HRA’s new online rental assistance platform CurRent, including challenges with documents properly uploading, including missing landlord information, deed, and other previously submitted documents.
Timely Application Processing:
Roll Back Rent Reasonableness: We appreciate HRA’s recent policy change which will move HCR legal regulated rent verifications for rent stabilized units to post lease signing to avoid application processing delays however, the rent reasonableness policy still needs to be addressed. Shelter staff report CityFHEPS applications now take months for approval following the reinstatement of rent reasonableness tests in April, and we urge HRA to reconsider the impact of this cost containment measure. Commissioner Dalton’s testimony that there would not be additional staff to conduct these tests is a cause for concern that this additional responsibility is further straining workloads of current HRA staff focused on processing CityFHEPS applications and renewals.
Int 98-2026 (Brewer): VOA-GNY supports the goals of this bill, to create a more efficient process to verify habitability standards and resolve concerns for potential housing opportunities through CityFHEPS. Defining the habitability assessment as an “inspection” and the people doing them as “inspectors” may necessitate additional City funding to provide building code certification training for homeless shelter rehousing staff. It may be prudent in this fiscal climate to modify the bill to conform to current “assessment” language to avoid this added cost and licensing burden.
The bill does offer important flexibility to address minor issues same-day within a 30-minute
period. This would save time for the voucher holder, shelter staff, and landlord. Currently, one
minor issue could mean waiting days for DHS to reschedule an assessment. The ability for
building owners to submit electronic proof of corrections of unsatisfactory conditions will
further hasten the review and approval housing conditions.
Our staff support limiting the scope of re-inspections to only the flagged issues from the initial assessment, apart from new emergencies that raise severe concerns such as leaking pipes, gas smells, broken windows, etc. which are witnessed in subsequent assessments. This will help to minimize iterative repeated assessments, and ensure the initial assessment is as thorough as possible. Similarly, limiting the scope of reviews for resubmitted CityFHEPS packets to the requested corrections would help minimize iterative paperwork reviews which prolong processing times and potential loss of housing opportunities.
Greater overall collaboration between providers, DSS, and landlords for habitability assessments, in terms of process and standards for the assessment can further save time for voucher holders and ensure the unit passes the first time.
Int 100-2026 (Brewer): VOA-GNY supports the goal of this bill to track average lengths of time
for rental assistance applications, and we recommend further disaggregation of the data by
steps in the approval process and by different referral and eligibility mechanisms to ensure
reporting more closely reflects the experiences of applicants and helps outline potential
bottlenecks and areas for additional process improvements and resourcing:
1) Total average length of time: from issuance of a shopping letter to move-in
a) Average length of time to identify housing: from issuance of a shopping letter to initial submission of a rental assistance packet to DHS/HRA
b) Average length of time for DHS/HRA to review/process: from initial submission of a packet to DHS/HRA to move-in date
c) Average length of time for HRA to issue checks: from packet approval date by HRA to move-in date
2) Disaggregating Reporting by different referral and eligibility mechanisms:
a) CityFHEPS
i) In-community To Move
ii) In-community To Stay
iii) Residing in DHS Programs
iv) Residing in HRA DV Shelters
v) Residing in DYCD RHY Programs
b) FHEPS
i) in-community To Move
ii) in-community To Stay
Int 101-2026 (Brewer): VOA-GNY supports the intent of this bill to shorten the processing time for rental assistance vouchers. To improve consistency of response times, we recommend changing the 15-day response time-limit to 10 business days. Establishing time limits for the DHS/HRA to respond to submitted rental assistance applications can help reduce the number of submitted packages which grow “stale”, necessitating updated documentation, redrawn leases, and public assistance rebudgets.
Improving Landlords’ Experience:
T2026-1424 (Moreno): VOA-GNY supports this legislation to establish an online portal for landlords to upload documents for rental assistance programs as well as enroll in electronic fund transfers for vouchered tenants, and flag administrative issues. Establishing a more direct way for landlords to submit documentation can facilitate more timely rental assistance packet submissions. Moreover, landlords need a way to actively flag administrative issues for HRA to address. Some of our shelter staff recount that landlords are hesitant to accept CityFHEPS vouchers because of issues with delayed and missing payments. A survivor who recently moved from VOA-GNY’s DV shelter into permanent housing is concerned about the stability of their housing because their landlord received the initial 3-month advance for CityFHEPS but has not started receiving their ongoing monthly rental assistance payments for the 4th month and onwards. Shelter staff are trying to assist the survivor, but a streamlined way for
landlords to contact HRA to resolve these issues can avoid unnecessary stress and heartache for tenants and landlords.
In addition to creating additional means to submit documentation, there is a need for additional trainings for landlords on the correct ways to complete forms and overall application and inspection process for voucher programs. Staff report that landlords’ forms are frequently returned due to errors, and our staff try to assist to keep the process moving forward but better training is needed.
Int 1023-2026 (Banks): VOA-GNY supports this legislation to create an electronic option for landlords to register their buildings with HPD. Our shelter staff report that rental assistance packages stalled because landlords of small buildings are not currently registered with HPD and unaware of the requirement, result in a month-long delay just to register the building.
Creating an electronic registration option can help make the process less burdensome for landlords to reduce this bottleneck. Additionally, we recommend HPD provide additional public awareness and outreach efforts to landlords to understand the annual registration requirement.
Preparations to Launch of the City Housing Assistance Program (CHAP)
Just as HRA needs robust staffing to administer rental assistance vouchers, the Administration should move with urgency to expand headcount at HPD to administer the new City Housing Assistance Program (CHAP) which the Council preserved to create. As the $175 million for CHAP in the FY27 budget does not automatically roll over to the next year, HPD must act with all due haste to build out infrastructure with sufficient hands to quickly process applications and administer vouchers starting in January.
We urge the City to utilize a similar approach as was done with Emergency Housing Vouchers to fully utilize every available voucher. By directing city agencies to start compiling lists now of people in their care who would likely qualify, HPD can frontload the application queue.
Given the 5-month window to get every voucher out before funding expires, HPD cannot afford to wait for applications to trickle in come January.
In Conclusion: Thank you, Chair Hudson, and Members of the General Welfare Committee, for your steadfast commitment to making rental assistance vouchers work better for tenants and landlords across New York City. Volunteers of America – Greater New York stands ready to work in partnership with the Council and Administration to improve access to rental assistance and permanent housing for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.