AGENCY TESTIMONY
Innovations and improvements in CityFHEPS administration
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148 sec
Commissioner Park outlines various initiatives and improvements to enhance the effectiveness of the CityFHEPS program and address housing challenges.
- Introduction of the Affordable Housing Services Program to create nearly 900 units of deeply affordable housing for CityFHEPS voucher holders
- Efforts to increase subsidy access by reducing work requirements and eliminating certain restrictions
- Collaboration with Reinstitute to improve package processing and reduce return rates
- Ongoing process improvements based on client and stakeholder feedback
- Technical improvements to streamline processes and reduce administrative burden
Molly Wasow Park
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Recognizing we are in a housing emergency, DSS is leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to connect New Yorkers in shelter to housing and has embarked on a program to use social service dollars to actually create deeply affordable housing.
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We announced our groundbreaking affordable housing services program in the beginning of 2024.
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Through this initiative, we are fast tracking the creation of newly constructed high quality and deeply affordable housing for city FEP's voucher holders and shelter.
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The agency will develop nearly 900 units through this program during the Adams administration.
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To date, the agency has brought 4 high quality sites comprising of 240 units online with most of these units leased up in a matter of weeks.
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We understand that city theft is a complicated and intricate program.
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DSS is committed to progressively strengthening the program over time.
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In recent years, we have worked to increase subsidy access by reducing work requirements for families with children, eliminating the 90 day rule, and allowing for the use of city FEP statewide.
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We've also focused on ways to generate more housing packages by holding providers accountable for meeting exit targets and training shelter staff on best practices for complete and thorough submissions to ensure housing packages can be expedited to get clients housed as quickly as possible.
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And finally, we've invested in technical improvements to help streamline the process.
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We continue to work to reduce client and landlord administrative burden by improving improving systems like Access HRA and current NYC.
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We are streamlining workflows and thinking critically about what documentation we really need.
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Doing so reduces the client's paperwork and form filling burden.
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To give just one example of how we are approaching this work, we are currently partnering with a nonprofit called Reinstitute that has a long history of bringing together people with lived experience of homelessness, government, and and service providers to facilitate housing placements for households experiencing homelessness.
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This is work they do all over the country.
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They are helping us to bring down our package return rate since we know that when we have to return a city feb's package to a shelter provider because documentation is missing or inaccurate, it adds time to that household shelter stay.
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Reinstitute is looking at both DHS and provider workflows to identify ways that we can improve.
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Process improvement is an ongoing endeavor as step by step, we gather input, reflect, and reassess based on client and stakeholder experience.
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We are committed to listening to feedback from our clients and stakeholders and exploring what we can make work better even in the face of a tight affordable housing market and other complex challenges.