It was a big change from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development meant to get people into apartments faster, cutting out the lengthy and complex system tied to the lottery.<\/p>\n
And according to housing managers, the agency itself and those who manage lotteries, the results are clear: the change has cut the time it takes to fill apartments drastically \u2014 in some cases shrinking the time frame from months to weeks.<\/p>\n
Now, the agency has extended a waiver it had issued last spring for another year, through April 30, 2027.<\/p>\n
That means apartment-seekers can continue finding affordable re-rentals on websites like Streeteasy and other platforms, instead of on Housing Connect only. To secure a lease, an applicant must be eligible for the apartment by having the right income requirements, as specified for the unit, which the landlord or broker must verify. HPD must approve applicants before they move in.<\/p>\n
In addition to advertising the affordable re-rental apartments publicly, landlords can also pull from an internal waitlist of eligible applicants to fill them.<\/p>\n
This approach to leasing re-rentals is meant to cut down a cumbersome process for managers of affordable housing, bring rental income to landlords quicker and speed up the move-in time for New Yorkers.<\/p>\n
Fast Forward<\/p>\n
The waiver extension comes as Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday announced plans to overhaul Housing Connect and accelerate the process of developing and leasing out affordable housing in the city.<\/p>\n
The revamped Housing Connect will \u201coffer direct relief for New Yorkers who need access to affordable housing now,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will cut the time it takes from the completion of a building to the day New Yorkers can move in in half, from 210 days to fewer than 100 days.\u201d<\/p>\n
As previously reported by THE CITY, months can pass<\/a> between when a building is done with construction and when it is fully filled with tenants.<\/p>\n Before May 2025, filling vacant re-rentals was a complicated process that required landlords to conduct a \u201cmini-lottery\u201d from a pool of applicants who had registered with Housing Connect when applying to previous lotteries and checked a box to indicate they\u2019d be interested in future re-rental opportunities.<\/p>\n That was done to ensure landlords leased apartments fairly. But it meant that landlords couldn\u2019t market the re-rental apartments to alert would-be tenants. They found that applicants in the pool\u00a0 \u2014 who fit income requirements for the available re-rentals but otherwise didn\u2019t express interest in the specific neighborhood or building \u2014 were not interested in the available re-rental apartments, or no longer needed to move.<\/p>\n Mildred Flores-Thevenin, director of affordable housing marketing and compliance at Settlement Housing Fund, said for one mini-lottery, her team looked at nearly 1,800 eligible applicants to fill a single re-rental apartment in a Midtown East building. It took almost a year.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened is they were matched at random so they didn\u2019t know about the property, so they didn\u2019t intentionally apply,\u201d Flores-Thevenin said. \u201cHaving folks interested in specific projects makes it easier to lease instead of having a randomized list.\u201d<\/p>\n This bureaucratic system led to hundreds of affordable apartments staying vacant for months after previous tenants moved out. One apartment in The Bronx with a rent of $1,250 sat empty for 16 months as the landlord tried to fill it, the New York Housing Conference found<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n That apartment belonged to University Neighborhood Housing Program. Brendan Mitchell, UNHP\u2019s director of real estate and finance, said re-renting an apartment through the mini-lottery took more than two years in some cases. But that timeline shortened to about six to eight weeks with the simpler process, which allowed the organization to pull tenants from an internal wait list.<\/p>\n \u201cThe buildings have benefited greatly from being able to generate rental income and the new residents are happy to be in a safe, quality apartment without waiting months and months,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n In the past year, with the waiver, about 45 to 60 days passed from when affordable apartments became vacant to when tenants got approved to move in, according to HPD. The agency did not have comparative data from before it waived the mini-lottery requirements.<\/p>\n But other entities in charge of leasing re-rentals affirmed speedier outcomes that resulted from doing away with the mini-lottery. Sam Rosenberg, executive director of Reside New York, said leasing up the new re-rental process was about 80% faster than going through the mini-lottery system.<\/p>\n \u201cThe workload for all parties involved has decreased significantly, and applicants are receiving outcomes much more quickly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/041626_for_rent_sign_2.jpg\")
A Washington Heights building owner advertised apartments for rent, April 16, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n