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Does an affordable housing lottery sound like some far-fetched fantasy where your odds of winning are akin to being struck by lightning?
On the contrary, unlike true gambles such as Powerball, winning an affordable housing lottery is within the realm of possibility—if you know how to play this game just right. And lotteries are popping up in many, major cities nowadays, not just New York City.
San Francisco, Chicago, Boston—all of these metros have some kind of housing lottery.
Here’s how to increase your odds of winning the ultimate prize: an affordable home!
What is affordable housing?
By affordable housing, we don’t mean just any old, cheap apartment. We’re talking about government-subsidized homes offered at prices substantially below market rates. How much you’ll pay in rent is determined on a sliding scale based on the tenant’s income.
“The definition of affordability is you pay no more than 30% of your total household monthly income toward rent,” says Elizabeth Purcell, a social worker who helps clients in New York City find affordable housing. This total monthly income includes utilities.
So, if you make $3,000 a month, you’d pay $900 for affordable housing. If you make $5,000 a month, well, you wouldn’t qualify at all, right?
On the contrary, the biggest misconception about affordable housing might be that you have to be near penniless to get in.
“Affordable housing lotteries have a variety of income ranges,” notes Purcell.
Just ask Michael Halden, who applied for affordable housing in New York City in 2014—and discovered that the range of qualifying incomes runs the gamut.
“When the Gotham West lottery was posted, it was four buildings divided by income brackets, low to high,” says Halden. “The lower end was around $25,000 per year and the highest around $100,000. You might not think someone with a $100,000 income would need affordable housing, but this is New York, after all.”
While affordable housing properties used to be found mainly in major cities, given the state of the economy and the housing crisis, more opportunities have started popping up in smaller communities across the country.
Just look at Sarasota, FL. In the past few years, there has been an influx of new residents moving to the Gulf Coast city, so much so that nearly 600 affordable housing units are in development, including one near the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport in Manatee County, according to the Miami Herald.
How to enter an affordable housing lottery
The first step is to find where affordable housing is offered in your area.
In New York City, the place to look first is NYC Housing Connect, which keeps an updated list of open lotteries for affordable dwellings and allows people to apply online.
If you live elsewhere, your best bet is to do an online search for “affordable housing lotteries” and the name of your town.
In Seattle, the Seattle Housing Authority Housing Choice Voucher program (formerly known as Section 8) asks prospective tenants to go to the SHA Portal and follow the instructions to register for the program. Once approved, applicants will be randomly selected from the voucher list whenever vouchers are available.
Another option is to contact your area’s Housing Preservation & Development department or the Housing Development Corp. Ask how to apply for 80/20 apartments (these buildings offer 80% of their apartments at market rate and 20% to lower-income applicants), or where to search for such lists.
Once you’ve found places you qualify for, start filling out the applications. Yes, you can apply to more than one housing lottery at a time, and you’ll probably want to since winning is often a numbers game (more on that next).
I applied, now what?
You sit and wait. There is some element of luck involved: Each building might have thousands of applicants. To keep things fair, each applicant is randomly assigned a number; the lower the number, the better the odds of getting in.
“After you apply to a building, you either never hear back if you weren’t selected, or you hear back within three months to three years after they begin the ‘rent-up’ process,” says Purcell. “Once the building is ‘leased up,’ meaning all the apartments have been filled, a certain number of people are automatically placed on the waitlist.”
As people move out of the building, applicants on the waitlist are called to fill their place.
But here’s the rub: In some cities, there are plenty of vacant apartments available that go weeks without a tenant—sometimes months!
For example, recently, The Gothamist wrote about a two-bedroom apartment on Tiebout Avenue in the Bronx in a fourth-floor walk-up. The monthly rent was just $1,250.85, and the unit was reserved for families earning no more than $101,000 a year. Yet no one has lived in it for over a year!
The reason? A recent report from the New York Housing Conference revealed that hundreds, possibly thousands, of vacant apartments remain unoccupied for months after tenants move out. The report attributes this delay to city regulations that force landlords to go through long waiting lists of individuals registered in the city’s housing lottery system, rather than allowing landlords to list apartments on the open market or letting prospective renters apply directly. The report’s authors argue that these delays are worsening the city’s ongoing housing crisis and are advocating for changes to speed up the process of filling empty affordable apartments.
“New Yorkers are desperate for affordable housing, and we have affordable housing units that are not being rented today because they are getting delayed by the city’s re-rental rules,” said Rachel Fee, who is the New York Housing Conference’s executive director and a former official at the city’s housing agency.
Is there any way to increase my odds?
Certain characteristics favored by the building could give you a leg up.
For instance, preferences are often given to individuals who already live nearby, or are municipal employees. Halden, who has now lived in two affordable housing units, first qualified when he fell ill and was given preference due to a disability. Affordable housing allowed him to continue living in New York solely on his disability checks.
“These apartments have literally been lifesavers for me,” says Halden.
Another way to increase your odds is to be open to more opportunities. In the case of the Bronx apartment, despite having just been refurbished, complete with new hardwood flooring and a remodeled kitchen, the apartment was listed as a “re-rental,” not a new build.
With the advent of social media, many think all affordable housing units now are “new builds” or don’t think the older ones are as nice. But the truth is even previously occupied spaces are subject to the same building codes. You may just be missing out on a great deal by not exploring this option.
What happens if I’m called?
If you are lucky enough to get called by a lottery, this is where the real work begins.
“Everything you filled out on the application has to be accounted for with evidence in the form of documents,” says Purcell. “The process can be quite lengthy.”
Expect to supply bank statements, proof of income, proof of assets, current lease amounts, information on stocks or IRAs, tax returns, and a birth certificate.
“Once you’ve been selected, it’s all about being organized and efficient,” says Purcell, who suggests getting assistance through a social service agency if possible to help to make sure everything’s right.
If I get in, what then?
Some affordable housing programs require yearly recertification, though you won’t lose the apartment if your income has changed. Usually, the rent-stabilized leases are offered for at least 15 years before they revert to market rates (which should give you time to save up for something else).
There might be other caveats as well, such as limitations on the number of people who can live in an apartment (e.g., applicants who get a studio and then marry might not be allowed to have spouses move in), but usually these are all spelled out before a lease is signed.
And if at first you fail, try again: Many housing lottery winners try for years with several different buildings before it works out.
“You’d be surprised by the number of people who drop out due to all the paperwork,” says Halden. “But the reward is an affordable living space. It’s sometimes weird to think I’m paying less than half of what someone else in the exact same apartment is paying, but I’m so grateful.”
Dina Sartore-Bodo contributed to this report.