New York City is making a change to help people with housing vouchers called CityFHEPS. These vouchers are for people who are homeless or about to lose their home. The voucher helps them pay rent for regular apartments. The tenant pays part of the rent, and the city pays the rest.

CityFHEPS stands for City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement. It is a program that helps people move out of shelters and into permanent housing.

The program is run by the Human Resources Administration, or HRA. HRA is a city agency that helps people in need. They give support like food help, cash help, and housing help. But HRA has a lot of rules and paperwork. Their process is slow and confusing. Because of this, people with vouchers often wait many weeks or months before they can move into an apartment.

While they wait, some landlords don’t want to hold the apartment. So, to keep the apartment available, the city offers landlords one month’s rent. This is called the “unit hold incentive.”

Mayor Eric Adams’ team stopped this payment earlier this summer to try to save money. But after public complaints and a lawsuit, the city changed its mind. The city will now continue to give landlords this payment for holding apartments. The rule will go through public review before any final changes are made.

Many people say this shows how the city wastes money. Instead of fixing the slow system, the city pays extra money to landlords while people are stuck waiting in shelters. This costs even more money in the long run.

This change is happening now, while New York City is dealing with a big housing crisis.