Laura Lazarus
2:53:59
Good afternoon, Chair Banks.
2:54:01
My name is Laura Lazarus and I'm the cofounder and chief executive officer of Anthos Home.
2:54:05
Thank you for the opportunity to testify about using housing vouchers and a better way to use them and expand their use.
2:54:13
Anthos Home is committed to helping New Yorkers with housing vouchers find and move into permanent housing as quickly as possible.
2:54:19
We know that housing vouchers are one of the most effective tools to address homelessness and housing instability, but too often they are difficult to use.
2:54:27
In New York City, it takes families an average of at least a year to secure housing after receiving a voucher.
2:54:32
This delay prolongs shelter stays and forces families to remain in unstable and challenging conditions.
2:54:38
This isn't a problem unique to New York.
2:54:40
Nationally, nearly 40% of federally issued housing vouchers are not used.
2:54:45
New York City has made tremendous progress in addressing homelessness, particularly through the city FEPS program.
2:54:51
In the past year alone, DSS has helped more than 14,000 households into permanent housing, a 45% increase over the previous year.
2:54:59
This achievement is a testament to the city's commitment to tackling homelessness at scale and ensuring that a housing voucher is a pathway to a home.
2:55:07
Despite this progress, persistent barriers prevent voucher holders from accessing stable housing both at NYCHA and throughout the city.
2:55:15
These challenges include finding landlords willing to accept vouchers, delays in processing approvals and payments, and the need for more robust support services to help tenants maintain their homes.
2:55:25
Tackling homelessness cannot be the responsibility of one program or agency.
2:55:29
A crisis of this magnitude requires strong partnerships between government, nonprofits, and the private sector, particularly the real estate community.
2:55:37
That's where we come in.
2:55:38
Anthos Homes model is designed to help tenants and landlords overcome these obstacles so that vouchers can be utilized quickly and effectively.
2:55:46
Our approach includes proactively securing apartments through a network of landlords and brokers, ensuring that families with vouchers have immediate access to housing options.
2:55:55
Additionally, our flexing fund flexible funding model allows us to cover necessary repairs for inspection approvals, moving costs, application fees, and other expenses.
2:56:08
We also provide critical support for both tenants and landlords throughout the process.
2:56:12
From assisting with paperwork to ensuring units and tenants are move in ready, we help streamline streamline what can otherwise be a slow and disjointed system.
2:56:20
Once families are housed, we provide ongoing support for at least a year including monthly check ins, help with repairs, and intervention if payment issues arise.
2:56:29
It's this wraparound approach that has reduced the burden on landlords while ensuring tenants have reached their resources.
2:56:35
And our model has proved effective over the last eighteen months.
2:56:39
To date, we have helped more than 270 families and individuals move into housing and every single one of them remain stably housed.
2:56:48
And I just wanted to add a note based on the testimony today from NYCHA that in our experience, in terms of working with NYCHA, we do think that there can be improvements in terms of the the time frame in which inspections are scheduled.
2:57:01
We know that in our experience it has been taking four to six weeks to just schedule an inspection and then another two weeks to actually have the inspection happen.
2:57:09
And then it's very difficult to actually follow-up with an actual person at NYCHA to figure out what when there are problems, what's going on.
