Meet CHAP, NYC’s New Rental Voucher, And What Else Happened This Week in Housing

The new City Housing Assistance Program, or CHAP, will provide rental vouchers to New Yorkers living in shelters, and people in rent stabilized apartments facing eviction, starting as early as March 2027.

A new acronym has entered the lexicon.

The city’s new rental voucher program, created during this year’s budget negotiations, will be called the City Housing Assistance Program, or CHAP, according to sources familiar with plans for the subsidy.

The program will serve approximately 5,600 low-income households who are either living in shelters or facing eviction from a rent stabilized apartment, according to the Department of Housing and Preservation (HPD). 

As part of June’s budget deal, the City Council and the mayor created CHAP as part of a legal settlement over a disputed expansion of the city’s existing housing voucher program, CityFHEPS.

Advocates and lawmakers had long called for CityFHEPS to cover more households, but Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former Mayor Eric Adams had previously declined to expand it—even though the Council passed laws to do so—citing costs.

CHAP will be significantly smaller than the expansion those Council bills sought. But it will cover some who were previously ineligible for CityFHEPS: people living in any city shelter, including those run by agencies other than the Department of Homeless Services, as well as people facing an eviction case from a rent stabilized apartment (CHAP eligibility will be capped at 50 percent of the area median income, roughly $76,000 for a family of three). It will also include people who meet other criteria but are currently ineligible for CityFHEPS due to work requirements.

As CHAP rolls out, here’s some key details to track:

• The program is hard capped. Once it reaches its $175 million budget allocation, no more vouchers will be issued. HPD said that they will maintain a waitlist if needed.
• CHAP will be administered by HPD, rather than the Human Resources Administration, which runs CityFHEPS. A spokesperson for HPD said they will receive applications from partner agencies that operate shelters, but are still finalizing their operations and policies.
• According to the legislation, half of the allocated budget will serve people in shelter and half will fund vouchers for people in rent stabilized apartments who are at risk of eviction.
• People living in some affordable housing will not be eligible for CHAP. If a building has a regulatory agreement—a contract between the building owner and the government, usually mandating some sort of affordable housing—tenants of the building would not be eligible, even if they meet income requirements, are rent stabilized, and face eviction. HPD said that the agreements they manage cover around 300,000 units in the city, but more could be covered by state or federal housing programs. You can look up if your building has a regulatory agreement on the city’s property records portal, ACRIS. 
• Applications for CHAP vouchers will open by January, with first eligibility determinations arriving in March, according to the settlement. If you are living in a shelter, talk to a housing specialist about applying.

Here’s what else happened this week—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

• All but four of New York City’s 59 community districts need to accelerate housing production to meet citywide needs, according to new growth targets released by the city Wednesday. See which areas need to catch up the most.
• The city is asking the public to weigh in on six updated scaffolding designs, which aim to offer “more light, visibility and space” than the thousands of typical pipe-and-plywood structures in place at properties across the city.
• After four children who attend childcare centers in NYCHA buildings were found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood, the housing authority tested all sites built before 1978, when lead paint was banned—and most were positive for the toxic metal.
• The federal government is proposing major changes to Head Start, an early childhood education program that serves 43,300 kids and 900 pregnant women across New York—including those experiencing homelessness, in foster care, or receiving public assistance. The new rules would mandate all programs are taught in English only, and require administrative cost cuts that one expert called “completely unrealistic.”
• The Mamdani administration will host five more “NYCHA in Your Neighborhood” events this fall, where public housing residents can take their issues up directly with city officials.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

• The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a plan to build high-rise apartments on a parking lot in Manhattan’s NoHo, despite local opposition, the New York Times reports.
• Mamdani administration officials declined to attend and take part in a City Council hearing on the mayor’s new tax on expensive second homes, aka pied-à-terres, angering lawmakers. City Hall cited an ongoing lawsuit against the tax as their reason for skipping out, according to The City Reporter.
• The city continues to reject the majority of applications for One-Shot Deals—emergency funding to help New Yorkers behind on rent avoid eviction—under Mayor Mamdani, Gothamist reports.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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