There are 31 buildings with open waitlists across the five boroughs (18 cooperatives and 13 rentals) and three with short waitlists (one cooperative and two rentals). It is important to highlight that persons who apply to a broad open waitlist may not hear back for four years. Mitchell-Lama Connect recently included External Waiting List Status, which allows applicants to see the current waiting list number and the date of the last approved application for each development, allowing them to track their progress better.
HPD offers a unified platform called NYC Housing Connect for non-Mitchell-Lama affordable housing, which lets users create a profile, upload required papers, and search housing lotteries that are presently accepting applications by borough, household size, income, and monthly rent.
Following the deadline, applications are chosen for examination by a lottery system. If your application is chosen and you appear to be eligible, you will be invited to further an interview to determine your eligibility. Interviews are typically held two to ten months after the application deadline. You will be required to present documents proving the size of your household, the identities of members of your household, your household income, and any assets you may have.
As previously stated on this page, the income requirements are determined by the Area Median Income (AMI). In addition to falling within a particular range of this value, applicants must also have a good rental history over the previous 12 months. A credit check was necessary until recently, but the City altered the rules so that New Yorkers who do not have social security or tax identification number could apply.
You will have an asset limit based on where you land on the AMI chart. An applicant with a 30 percent AMI, for example, has a household asset limit of $34,110, but someone with a 175 percent AMI has an asset limit of $198,975.
How good are my chances?
In May of 2016, the odds of finding a low-cost apartment were approximately 1,000 to 1. According to 6sqft, 2.54 million individuals registered for 2,628 affordable apartments through Housing Connect from January to May of that year. Even though the total number of applications nearly doubled from two years before, more than 4.6 million in 2018 (the most recent numbers), the odds improved to 1 in 592. The higher probabilities are since they applied for a whopping 7,857 residences.
However, according to a June 2020 story in The City, “the lower the rent — and the lower the income of the applying household — the more persons applied per apartment.” They examined more than 18 million applications to the NYC Housing Connect system between January 2014 and March 2019. They discovered that extremely low-income units received an average of 650 applications per unit, whereas middle-income units received 123 applications per unit.
