Affordable housing in Brooklyn

Old and new housing in Williamsburg.

Photo by Susan De Vries

New York City has made a serious commitment to address family homelessness, and it is spending enormous resources on its efforts. With an estimated 100,000 people in shelter, including tens of thousands of children, the focus and efforts are well placed. Today, we are releasing policy recommendations for how the city can improve its impact and realize better outcomes for our families.

The city already has one of the most generous housing voucher programs in the country. CityFHEPS, the city’s primary rental subsidy, gives families in shelter money to cover rent. It’s a real shot at a stable home, but it has its challenges. According to the State Comptroller 80% of families who qualify can’t actually use their voucher.

Take Diamond.  She entered shelter in early 2024 with her infant son, Legend. She had a housing voucher but faced the challenges many families encounter: landlords unwilling to rent to voucher holders, paperwork delays, and months of uncertainty that made stability feel out of reach.

Stories like Diamond’s illustrate the barriers that can slow down even the most well-intentioned housing programs. Families often spend more than a year navigating the path from shelter to housing —coordinating paperwork across agencies, passing inspections, and securing landlord approval — before they can finally move in. 

Anthos|Home was created to help New York’s existing voucher programs work the way they were intended: efficiently, equitably, and at scale. We are working hand-in-hand with City agencies, landlords, and community nonprofits, eliminating the friction that costs families months and the City millions, ensuring public resources and private housing operate as a single system.

The results are promising. Families referred to Anthos|Home move into permanent housing in less than half the time it typically takes. Our pilot moved nearly 1100 into housing in the last two years, including Diamond and her son, who secured housing within three months of working with us. 

New York City does not need to invent a new system to make housing vouchers work. The tools already exist. What’s needed now is stronger coordination — connecting public resources, private housing, and nonprofit expertise so that every voucher issued becomes a voucher used. That’s the recommendation we make in our paper, Creating a New Way Home [insert link to website].

The city could scale that model by creating a citywide program that contracts with designated housing navigation providers and equips them with flexible funding to cover costs that can block a move-in—repairs, furniture, moving expenses, and brief payment gaps. Under this model, contracted nonprofit partners would be responsible for finding and matching units, coordinating inspections and paperwork, and using flexible dollars to resolve barriers.

By investing in housing navigation and flexible support, the city can build on its historic commitment to shelter and housing and ensure that the promise of a voucher becomes the reality of a front door key.

Laura Lazarus is the CEO and co-founder of Anthos|Home, a New York City nonprofit working to move families from shelter to permanent housing. Learn more at anthoshome.org.