The city is making it easier to apply for affordable housing by cutting down paperwork, aiming to speed up move-ins as New York faces a low vacancy rate.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Housing Development Corp. announced the new updates this week to NYC Housing Connect, the city’s affordable housing lottery system.

Some of the changes include:

  • Employed applicants will now only be required to submit one month of pay stubs instead of several. People with less than $51,600 in assets can now self-certify their information without bank statements, and affidavits no longer need to be notarized.
  • Tax returns will only be needed for applicants who are self-employed.
  • The city is also requiring less documentation from applications already receiving federal benefits like SNAP.
  • People with disabilities will now be able to use a driver’s license or school records to qualify for set-aside units, making the process faster and more accessible.

Meanwhile, the city is temporarily changing how re-rentals and resales of affordable housing are advertised. Marketing agents no longer have to list those units on NYC Housing Connect, though they still can. A new city webpage will soon make it easier for people to find those listings in one place.

“As we roll full steam ahead on our aggressive and historic housing agenda to unlock, build and preserve record levels of housing across our city, we must be equally focused on ensuring New Yorkers have easy and efficient access to the thousands of affordable homes that become available through the Housing Connect lottery each year,” executive director for housing Leila Bozorg said in a statement. “These recent reforms to the lease-up process begin to recognize the urgency of the moment, where we have a 1.4% rental vacancy rate and an ongoing housing emergency.”

In 2024, HPD said it helped nearly 14,654 households move into affordable homes, including more than 10,000 through lotteries and about 4,600 from shelters into permanent housing.