Q&A
HPD's outreach efforts for affordable homeownership applicants
1:03:07
·
3 min
Council Member Salamanca inquires about HPD's outreach efforts for low and moderate-income New Yorkers applying for affordable ownership units. HPD officials detail their multi-faceted approach to outreach and assistance.
- HPD markets opportunities through Housing Connect and works with housing ambassadors to help New Yorkers access and understand these opportunities.
- They collaborate with HUD-certified counseling agencies and servicers for the Home First program.
- HPD conducts various engagement events and can work with council members to host informational events.
- The Homeowner Help Desk pilot program, which has reached over 47,000 homeowners, is being expanded citywide to potentially reach 160,000 New Yorkers over three years.
Rafael Salamanca, Jr.
1:03:07
What kind of outreach does HPD conduct among our low and moderate income New Yorkers applying to purchase Opendoor?
1:03:14
And other affordable ownership units.
Kim Darga
1:03:18
So there are a couple ways in which we do outreach when it comes to homeownership opportunities.
1:03:24
First, we do have housing ambassador.
1:03:27
So let me take this cut back.
1:03:29
All of our financed opportunities or anything we financed certainly in the last 5 or 6 years now has we market it through housing So it is all publicly available information.
1:03:46
If somebody is an interesting opportunity, that is the place to go.
1:03:49
Okay?
1:03:51
So that's for a second.
1:03:53
We do have housing ambassadors.
1:03:56
So, communities organizations that can help New Yorkers that are interested in affordable housing, whether if that's a rental or homeownership opportunities under stand our marketing process and guidelines and help them access those opportunities that might be out there, understand what they're gonna need to do to qualify.
1:04:18
We also specifically for home first, there are about 20 community based HUD certified counseling agencies that we work with that work with the homeowner at the start.
1:04:33
So they actually may have first engaged with that organization for some other reason and end up talking about down payment assistance or maybe specifically interested in how to access homeownership opportunities Those organizations certainly do outreach and engagement.
1:04:53
We also have 2 now servicers, specifically Home First, who do outreach as well as review applications for Home First, and that's NHS of New York City as well as the Center for New York City Neighborhoods.
1:05:12
And so they also are out there.
1:05:15
And then finally, HPD does range of engagement, tabling events, attending events, can work with you as council members if you're interested in hosting an event, basically providing information about both home first as well as other opportunities that we have.
Ahmed Tagani
1:05:36
And I I know the council has heard about the work on the homeowner help desk.
1:05:40
This is a pilot that we put out in the field in 3 neighborhoods, in the North Bronx, in Southeast Queens, in Central Brooklyn.
1:05:48
You know, through that work, we saw that we were able to reach around 47100 homeowners and assist 23100, but I think it's important to note that the assistance went and really reached low income and people of color.
1:06:02
We saw that at least 80% of the people we served were people of color and 50% Almost over 50% were senior.
1:06:10
And moving forward with this administration, we're baselining the homeowner help desk.
1:06:14
We're gonna go from 3 neighborhoods of the city, go city wide, and build in a 3 year contract where we're hoping to reach upwards of a 160,000 New Yorkers at least over 250 events.
1:06:27
And this is, you know, coupled with the H.
1:06:29
B.
1:06:30
Senior district, which deputy commissioner Darga already spoke about.
